


Elegies Part I: Words for the Faded

by useyourlove



Series: Elegies [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, Jossverse
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-06
Updated: 2011-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/useyourlove/pseuds/useyourlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Folks have run out of demons to fight in San Francisco, nobody really pays attention to the Slayer anymore, and Spike thinks Buffy should move on to somewhere more in need of her services. Road trip to New Orleans? That's what every girl needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted at [wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/3683.html) on LiveJournal.

_The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,_  
 _The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,_  
 _The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,_  
 _And leaves the world to darkness and to me._  
\--Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Lines 1-4 by Thomas Gray (1751)

* * *

 

He hadn't seen her in so long, but he knew where she’d be—knew exactly where to find her when he got home. It had been over a week since he’d last seen her, but he could smell her in the air—a dead giveaway that she had been nearby recently. Well, that and the pile of demon carnage she left in her wake. And hey, length of time is a subjective thing, and a week was a bloody long time. He couldn’t keep away from her any longer, not after the trip to see the man about the thing. Spike knew just how entrenched in his soul she was. Not his soul... no. This wasn't about souls. How entrenched in his very being. The soul had never hurt him as much as being away from her.

And so he had appeared beside her, fighting evil. And crime. And all the other things they were supposed to fight because (God help him) they were the good guys. When the punches stopped flying and the dust cleared she had stared into his eyes for so long that he was wondering if she could even see him.

"I don't need you," she said, her voice small and her eyes intense. He felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. "I don't need you. I _don't_ need you." Until he realized she was just trying to convince herself. She closed her eyes, chewed on her lip, and looked up at the sky as if there were something there just waiting for her to give in to temptation.

Then he was engulfed in her, wrapped in her arms, her lips latched to his, hot and insistent and begging without even having to say. He felt as if he were being pulled into her. She broke the kiss, pressing him tighter to her, wrapping him in her arms with strength that he felt certain cracked a rib. But he didn't particularly care. He encircled her in his own arms, bloodied knuckles mussing her clothes and staining her blonde hair. Her body trembled in his embrace and he ran his fingertips against her scalp, trying to sooth away the tears without acknowledging them.

"Oh, god," she said, barely able to speak around the lump in her throat. "God, oh god. Let's get out of here. Let's get out of her, please."

But neither of them wanted to let go. She was safe and he was complete and neither one wanted to move.

“Thought you weren’t coming back.”

 “I always come back, pet.”

“I’m starting to believe that. You stayed away too long.”

He grinned into her hair, reveling in the scent of it and the soft slide of it against his cheek. “Was trickier than I thought.”

 “I should’ve gone with you.”

“Glad you didn’t. Would’ve killed you.”

“Dope,” but her arms never loosened.

Days, weeks seemed to pass, though it couldn't have been more than five minutes.

"Spike?"

"Yeah?" his voice was husky and he couldn't seem to get it in gear.

"My arm's asleep."

"Right."

Slowly, they began to release each other from their death grips. Their muscles didn't want to obey. Only when her feet hit the ground again did she realized just how tightly they had been holding on. She hadn't even realized she wasn't grounded. Two mere mortals would've probably been crushed into one gory puddle. As it was, they'd both be circled by bruises.

She sniffed, took a breath, heaved a sigh. "Sorry." She tossed the hair out of her eyes, her arms still resting on his shoulders, his hands still entrenched around her waist. She felt like an idiot for crying. He’d only been away a few days after all. A little more than a week. But she hadn’t realized just how used to him she was... just how she—no she wouldn’t admit that. Not even to herself.

When she looked into his eyes she couldn't look away. He leaned forward, his lips pressing softly against hers, stealing her breath. Her lips trailed after his when he tried to pull away, drawing out the kiss for as long as she could.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

She laughed. "Yeah."

*****

She had learned thousands of things about vampires since she had been called as the Slayer. Her life before was a blur, not the least of which because half of the memories were doctored, faked, or just plain untrue. But one of the things she continually discovered over and over again was that sleeping with a vampire inevitably destroyed whatever space you were in. Or maybe that destruction was just when she slept with Spike. Either way, the apartment was doomed from the moment they opened the door. They were lucky the door _got_ opened instead of knocked in, but Buffy got the key in the lock and Spike got it turned and, once they fell backwards through it, he kicked it shut behind them.

The table was first to go, as Buffy tried to get the keys into the bowl she had by the door. The bowl crashed to the floor, Buffy's back cracked against the corner of the table and Spike crushed her against the wall, the table toppled behind them.

"Ah, Spike?" she gasped—he couldn't tell if in pain or pleasure. Wasn't sure they weren't the same thing anyway.

"Yeah?"

"Mm. Don't stop."

"Wasn't planning on it."

Then the lamp went. Someone lost a shoe. They crashed backwards over the back of her couch, rolling straight off the cushions and onto the floor, Spike taking the brunt of the fall. He cracked his elbow on the sharp edge of the coffee table on the way down, crying out and trying to shake a little feeling back into his fingers, shoving the offending bit of furniture out of the way. He buried his now numb fingers back in her hair, smashing her lips back to his.

She had her hands under his shirt, his coat still on, her fingers rippling under at least three layers of clothing that she simply wanted to rip off. She settled for peeling it back impatiently, yanking at his leather duster, tugging insistently at the dressy black buttoned shirt, her hands shaking too much to handle the buttons. He sat up and pulled it over his head, taking the undershirt with it, leaving him topless on the floor of the living room, being straddled by the Slayer. Her hands were on the hem of her tank top before he could even manage to process what was going on, and she was as naked as him before he could stop her.

She pulled his hands to her breasts, his cool skin soothing on her overheated flesh, flushed from a night of slaying and making out in random enclaves that they found along the way on their desperate trek back to the apartment. A moan escaped her lips and he closed his eyes at the sound, reverberating through him as if the noise itself had travelled through his blood straight to his crotch.

"Please, Spike," he didn't have to ask what she wanted.

He wrapped his hands around her back, marveling as ever at just how tiny she was when both of his palms were enough to cover her back from side to side. He rolled them over and they hit the TV stand, sending the boxy analog TV toppling with a thud to the ground. Probably knocked loose a tube. Nothing he couldn't fix. But later. Much later. Not now. Now was time to worship at the altar of Buffy.

He tugged at the button on her pants, and she tugged at his, both so ineffectual in their need that they stopped, smiling sheepishly at each other, and giggled. They pulled away for a moment, quickly ridding themselves of their remaining clothing. And there they were, lying on the ground in her half-trashed apartment, gaping at one another. She pressed herself to him, loving the feel of his skin on her, loving the feel of another person so near—it had been so long. Nobody had been here in ages. Ok, fine. Nobody had been here for the whole week Spike was gone. But she had felt totally cut off. God, how she had forgotten what it was she was so lonely for.

The way she clutched at him told him everything he needed to know without words. The look on her face said that if he didn't get inside her _this instant_ he was going to suffer her wrath. She took hold of his cock and he closed his eyes at her touch. If he wasn't already dead he would've thought he was going to die.

She guided him home. Her hot little cunt gripped at him just as desperately as the rest of her had all night, and he knew then— _knew_ —that he would die again. A double death. She was still as unbelievable as ever. He pulled back and thrust hard, deep into her, hitting that spot that he knew so well. "Oh," she breathed.

She tried to roll him, tried to get on top, but he'd have none of it and they got tangled up in their limbs, banging into a bookshelf loaded with tomes that were apparently on loan from Faith, as they looked like things that only Giles would have. He wondered if she even cracked them, or if they were only there to crack him in the skull when they fell off the shelf.

"Ow."

"Shut up. Harder. Oh—"

She clutched at him and he sat up, pulling her with him to press desperately against her clit with every deep smashing thrust. His lips trailed in the curve of her neck, leaving butterfly kisses that nearly sent her over the edge in a powerful way that direct stimulation never could. She felt the flat of his teeth scraping against her skin and clenched around him. He bit down, so hard that he nearly broke the skin before he caught himself, moaning against her body.

"Oh, Christ," he said, pulling back from her and rubbing his thumb along the bite mark. "Oh, Christ, Buffy!"

Neither of them was going to last as long as they wanted to. They felt as if they hadn't been around anyone real in years. Funny, how days seemed to grow unbearably long under certain circumstances. And yet when they were in each other's presence everything else seemed to fade away. Like the fact that everything in the living room was now completely destroyed.

She pulled his head to hers, lips swollen and nipped, and he felt as if she were setting him on fire everywhere that she touched. He had never thought combustion would be such a brilliant way to go until then—and he ought to know, hadn't he? She mashed her lips to his, mutually bruising, tongues thrusting. She crashed down against him one more time, clenching her muscles so tightly that he thought she would drag the soul out of him through his cock as he exploded into her, fumbling desperately for her clit to send her with him.

When he came back to himself he was on his back, Buffy still astride him, her eyes soft and searching and memorizing every single line of his face. She ran a finger across his brow, down his cheek, tracing across his chin. "You never change."

"It’s only been a week, love,” he said, amused.

“I know. But... you look just exactly the same as... as all that time ago.”

“That's part of the deal."

She leaned down, her warmth nearly unbearable as she covered him with her body, resting her forehead against his with a harder than necessary clunk that rattled his teeth. She took a deep steadying breath and let it out with a sigh, sliding her face down his, as if trying to memorize his face using the tip of her nose. She eventually just gave up and sprawled on him in a boneless heap. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, trying not to show he knew that she was crying.

"Hey, now," he finally said. "Nothing to cry about." He sat up on his elbows and she sat back on his knees, face in hands.

"Sorry," she was wiping hastily at her cheeks.

He grabbed her wrists and tugged her arms down into her lap. She closed her eyes, trying to hide behind her hair. He brushed it behind her ear and pulled her chin up, her eyes opening and locking on his. "What's all this? And don’t launch yourself at me and think you can get out of talking. What the hell’s been going on around here?”

“Spike.”

“Yeah?”

She glared at him, apparently trying to collect her thoughts. “It’s just... it’s stupid. I missed you so much. And things have been getting all weird around here. And...” she looked at him, waiting for him to do that thing he did. That thing where he tore down all the defensive walls she had built up that she didn’t have any idea how to get back through. He always knew just what to say, just what to do—he knew her better than she knew herself and that was what had always disarmed her about him—made her so defensive. That was what she relied on now. He was the only one she could turn to. She had known that for a long time, but it was strange to have had him gone so long. Particularly in the middle of all the flux and surges in the paranormal going on.

He took her wrists in his hands and pulled until she had her fingers splayed across his chest. The soft indulgent perfectly understanding little smile he had on his face was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes again. But it was more than enough to get a mirrored smile exactly like his on her face.

“Are you home now? For good?”

“Am I ever?”

She closed her eyes and nodded, taking a breath and pulling her hands back to wipe her cheeks dry.

“Hey, I’ve got demon stink. Not the nicest perfume, huh?”

“Doesn’t bother me, pet.”

“Well, it bothers me. I’ve got to smell it. I’m gonna hop in the shower, _love_ ,” she shot coyly over her shoulder as she stood up, not even bothering to pick up her clothes. She gave a mighty stretch that Spike figured was entirely for his benefit before she sauntered off to the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

Spike stood up and pulled his jeans back on, surveying the damage they had done to the furniture. He gave a little puff of laughter through his nose and rifled through the pockets of his duster for his cigarettes. He pulled one out and lit it up, thinking back through everything he’d done the past week or so, taking a long drag and letting it calm his nerves before exhaling slowly and giving the telly a jab with his toe.

“Huh,” he said, walking in to the bedroom and flopping down on the bed, grabbing the remote from where it was buried under Buffy’s various knickknacks and switching on the tiny old television set on the dresser.

His brow furrowed, watching all the terror, murder, and mayhem flash by in two minute snatches on the screen. There was just something so terribly... so terribly... _familiar_ about it all. Something...

He heard the water turn off and heard her breathing in the steamy air, rustling about, the soft whisper of the towel as she pulled it off the towel bar and rubbed it along her skin. Sometimes he couldn’t decide if the preternatural hearing was a blessing or a curse. He shifted around, trying to get comfortable.

The door opened and she stepped out in a swirl of mist.

“Did you see this on the telly, pet?”

“Hm? Don’t smoke in the bed. You’ll burn down the building.” She was fluffing at her wet hair with a towel and wearing nothing at all.

He shifted to snuff out the cigarette in the ashtray she kept on the night table, his eyes lustful, his tongue curled around his teeth. She stopped when he didn’t reply. “Spike?” she saw the look on his face and smiled. The smile still made his heart skip a beat. “What’s on the T.V.?”

“Oh, some big explosion in Tucson.”

“Yeah?” she crooked a foot under her as she sat on the edge of the bed and slapped her hair around like a dog shaking out its fur, spattering cold drops on his torso. She did that on purpose. “That matters how?”

“Dunno. Seems weird though, dunnit?”

“Things blow up all the time, Spike. And it doesn’t seem like a Slayer’s style to just blow up a random corporate headquarters.”

“Maybe it was Faith.”

“Faith’s in London,” she said, shooting him a look of deep exasperation.

“I dunno, Buffy,” his tone clearly indicating that he no long gave a damn. His hand trailed toward her of its own accord, his fingertip trailing along the outside of her thigh. He was completely distracted by now, not even caring that he had completely lost whatever train of thought had steamed through his head when the story had come up on the news. Her eyes closed, her hands dropped to her lap, the towel dropping in a sodden heap to the floor.

She leaned over, dropping a kiss along his ribs, nuzzling her nose against his bones. She slid up the bed, dropping her head into the crook of his shoulder, his arm going around her to hold her close to him, as if trying to meld her body to his just from the sheer force of muscle alone. She drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.

"Missed you."

"I always miss you, pet. Miss you when you're gone for five minutes." Her fingers were playing along his chest, idly tracing random little patterns.

"So," she said, strumming her fingernails against his skin. "Did you get what you went for?"

"Beat some information out of a couple of demons. Nothing we didn't know already. Hotspots are getting hotter, demons are gathering, vampires are out in the open, blah blah blah. They say it's worse where they were already in the open. New York, Seattle, New Orleans—New Orleans especially. Hell, pet, L.A. had vampires out in broad moonlight before I left. And that was long enough ago that it's probably a hot bed now."

"I thought it always was. Seat of seedy evil and all that. Second in Southern California only to sunny Sunnydale—god, say that three times fast."

He shrugged it off, his fingers tracing almost exactly the same little patterns along her shoulder that she had traced across his chest. He placed a kiss against her forehead, his lips soft and tender against her skin. She hoisted herself up on one elbow gazing down at him with such sparkling warm eyes that he almost felt uncomfortable. It almost made him squirm. Almost. His chin went up, his lips reaching for hers as she crashed her mouth down against his. He found himself divested of his jeans, nude again like her, and he had no idea how it happened. She nipped at his ear, her lips trailing to the tender skin behind his earlobe, teeth scraping down his throat and drawing a growl. She threw her leg across his thighs, straddling him, rubbing her slick entrance against his shaft. He moaned, sitting up on his elbows to bury his nose against her shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pressing her torso against his. Her hands went to his face, the pads of her fingers pressing insistently against his skull. He sat up completely then, trying to pull her in for a desperate kiss. She resisted, pulling back slightly to grab his cock and lower herself languorously down on him. He drew in a breath and blew it out threw his nose, simply trying to regain some sense of composure.

"Spike," she breathed his name and he captured her lower lip between his teeth as he lifted her hips and ground her down against him. She groaned and shifted around, folding her knees so that she could gain leverage and pump herself along his length. She made a noise that was a cross between a groan and a purr that went straight to his groin. He surged into her with a feral growl, plunging his tongue into her mouth in tandem with every deep thrust into her nethers.

She had to pull away from the kiss to breathe. "Oh, Spike," his fingers dug into her waist hard enough to leave bruises. He buried a hand in her hair, crashing her mouth back against his. "Spike!" she cried, having to pull away again for air. "Don't—" he nipped behind her ear like she had done to him earlier."Uhn, please. Yes, pleeease. Harder, Spike—"

"Any harder we'll break the bed."

"Don't care— _please_."

She didn't leave it up to him, she grabbed his hips, grinding him against her clit with every vicious downward thrust until she was crying out his name. "Ah, _Spike_!" she came, his name barely more than a scream and her nails drawing blood from his hips, her walls squeezing him so tightly that he lost the small semblance of composure he'd been hanging onto, his blunt teeth sinking deeply into the meat of her shoulder, drawing blood. He felt his self-control slip.

"Ah!" she cried, shoving a hand into his chest and slamming his dazed vamp-faced head back down on the pillow. "No to the bumpies." His face slid back to its human incarnation, eyes closed and face full of lusty satisfaction.

"Buffy," he whispered. "Love you _so_ much."

She moved off of him, sighing as he slid out of her, running the warm skin of her breasts up his torso to rest her head in the crook of his other shoulder, her fingers trailing idle little patterns along his pecs again. She dropped a soft kiss in the hollow of his shoulder.

"Missed you," she said for the millionth time that night.

"I always miss you."

"I never get tired of hearing that."

"I love you."

He felt her smile without having to see it as she gave him an affectionate squeeze. “That either.”

“Sleep love. You’ve got work in the morning and it’s nearly 2 now.”

“Oh, shit!” she said, sitting up straight. “I have to be at work at 6!”

He quirked an eyebrow and Buffy studied the curve of it. She reached out to run her thumb along his brow and his tongue curled around his teeth in that way that inevitably spelled dirty dealings.

“Need some help relaxing love?”

“Haven’t you relaxed me enough for one hour?” she chuckled.

“You look awfully tense.”

He smirked, she smirked, and he pulled her back down, head on the pillows as he set to work petting her muscles into a puddle of sleeping ooze. He loved it when she slept. Loved to just lie around and watch her breathe, feel the blood pounding through her veins, feel the heat of her against him. He soothed her bad dreams and rubbed away her tension, kept her sleeping as if he were keeping her head above water in the ocean. And when the horizon began to brighten and the sun began to peek through the cracks in the curtains he roused her, feeling as if the few short hours since he’d returned were nothing compared to the ones he was about to spend without her. When she’d left for work with a quick peck on the top of his head and some frazzled juggling of grabbing her purse, locking her door, and trying to tie the apron strings of her uniform at the same time, he decided maybe it was time to get in touch with a few of his more savory (and unsavory) local contacts. He dressed, headed for the building's basement and pulled open the sewer access door with a vicious yank, dropping himself down into the muck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike spends an awful lot of time trying to convince Buffy to leave San Francisco before the impending non-descript doom. And then they beat each other up. A lot. What's new?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also posted on LJ at [wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/4109.html)  
>  **A/N:** While for some reason I thought it would be amusing to have a disgruntled neighbor call the cops of Buffy and Spike's shenanigans, domestic abuse is _not_ a laughing matter. If someone is beating on you (and you aren't a Slayer who can kill them back) _seek help immediately_.

"Spike!" she called, dropping her bag with a thump that belied just how heavy it was as she came in the door. She jingled her keys and tossed them into the bowl on the foyer table. She looked around at the apartment, brow furrowing, mouth screwing up in a contemplative little fish face. The whole place was perfectly pristine, as if they hadn't destroyed it with sex the night before. Either Spike had gotten bored or she had dreamed the whole thing. Sometimes it got to the point where she couldn't tell the difference between the dreams and reality. Or maybe it was a prophecy. Earth-shattering sex ahead. Somehow she doubted the prophecy people would care whether she was getting any or not.

"Spike? You home?"

She could feel him, just before he attacked. His presence ran up her spine like a chill just before he pinned her against the wall with his lips, eliciting a growl from the back of her throat. She opened to him, his tongue pressing as she sucked it desperately into her mouth. The kiss slowed, drawing out the pleasure, coursing through them like the slow undulations of the sea. Her hands roamed up his back, pressing him to her, holding him against her, loving the bulk of him, relishing the feel of his muscles beneath his t-shirt. She snatched at the tip of his tongue with her teeth and he groaned, pulling back with a throaty giggle that made her grin.

He smiled, eyes soft, looming over her as he pressed her back against the wall. "How was your day?"

She closed her eyes lazily, running a hand along the top of his shoulder before she lifted her lids and smiled back. The whole situation was so saccharine it was almost putrescent. She relished it. "How do you think my day was?"

"Mm," he nuzzled the tip of his nose against her collar bone, dragging it up her neck and peppering tiny kisses in its wake. "You smell like coffee."

"Better than grease, hm?"

"You always smell good enough to eat."

She cocked an eyebrow at him with a goofy ironic smile.

"Ok, that may have been a poor choice of words."

She leaned her head forward to plant a dainty kiss on the tip of his nose.

"Get bored?"

"Hm?"

"You picked up the apartment."

"Mm. Went to see some people. Didn't take as long as I thought. Didn't have anything better to do. Got right good at it with all that practice back in my crypt."

She wrapped her arms around him tightly, suddenly. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder, his body going into sensory overload in such full contact with hers. It did that every time. He was too shocked for a moment to move, but he wrapped her in his arms in kind, placing a soft kiss against her hair. She sighed in response and gave him a harder little squeeze. He was happy that, when it came to these hugs, he didn't need to breathe.

"Good day, then?" she said, voice too high.

"Good enough day, yeah. You hungry? I made you dinner."

She pulled back, a tiny smile on her face. "Why do you love me?"

"I hope that's rhetorical. I’d rather be stroking other things than your ego, pet," he said, letting her go and giving her hair another kiss. "Food. Eat. Now. Before you fall over. Then we'll go patrol."

"Sun's not down yet."

"It will be when you're finished. I'm still working on the T.V. anyway."

"The T.V.?" she said, heading into the kitchen and finding all the pots and pans simmering on low heat on the stove. "Uh... how bored _were_ you today?"

"We broke it last night," he said, ignoring her sarcasm. "Knocked a tube loose or something. Not hard to fix, just have to get around to it."

She ladled out large quantities of mashed potatoes and numerous pieces of the reheated ham that she's had stowed away in the fridge. She wondered briefly if she was being buttered up for Sex-o-lympics before she realized that she wouldn't be particularly put out if she was.

The silverware drawer clattered and slammed shut again, and she plopped herself down Indian-style on the sofa to watch the Handyman-Spike-Show, plate balanced in her lap. She watched the muscles ripple beneath his shirt as he lifted the T.V. off the stand and lowered it to the ground. He knelt beside it, opening the case, and she felt a smirk twitch her lips.

"You're pretty."

"Wha'sat?"

"You're pretty."

"If you want this fixed you'd better quit looking at me like that."

She plopped the fork in her mouth and smiled around it. "How about if you can't see me seeing you."

He grunted in a non-committal way before he turned his back on her and set about re-seating the tubes and various other loose and questionable bits in the television. He crammed the case back together with a snap and lifted it back into place on the stand.

When he looked at her he nearly sniggered his nose off. She was wearing her sunglasses, still watching him with a predatory look, just hiding her eyes from view as she did it. He covered his mouth with his hand, trying to contain the laughter but failing miserably as he doubled over, hearty guffaws wracking at him.

She just grinned, sliding her cleaned plate onto the coffee table and dropping her shades beside it, patting her thighs, inviting him to sit like inviting a puppy to hop into her lap. He happily obliged, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and swinging his legs up into her lap, snuggling in against her neck, enjoying the warmth of her. The sound of her heartbeat pounded in his ear so hard that he felt it moving his cheek.

"Have I said enough how much I missed you?" she said.

"No."

"I missed you."

"You'll make yourself sick on sweets if you say it anymore."

She kissed his forehead with saucy relish. "I haven't O.D.ed on sweetness yet."

"Let's go kill things."

"Definitely," she said. They hopped up in unison, at the limit of their lovey-dovey quota, and--shrugging their black leather jackets on--headed for the door.

 *****   
****

“Ow.”

“Let me see it.”

She brushed his hand away, giving her shoulder a rolling shrug.

“It’ll be all right,” she said, throat tight. She blew her breath out between her teeth, easing her arms out of her coat and throwing it across the back of the couch. Spike grabbed it and hung it on the coat rack, hanging his up beside it.

“Let me see the damn thing, Buffy.”

They’d been ambushed on a busy street, one vamp throwing Buffy out into traffic, her shoulder getting intimately acquainted with the front end of a moving car. She’d jumped right back into the fight and the two vampires were dusted in a matter of minutes. The night was quiet after that--the rest of the beasties too terrified or too dead-already to give them any kind of fight. But she had tenderly nursed her arm all night long, trying (and failing) to hide how it bothered her.

She shot him a glare, but sat down on the edge of the couch. He sat behind her, fingertips gingerly brushing against her neck and along her shoulder. She hissed a breath in between her teeth.

“Is it broken?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. Undo some buttons.”

“What?”

“Undo some buttons so I can peel your clothes off.”

She quickly undid a few of the buttons on her waitressing uniform, dropping the fabric from her shoulder and showing the swollen bruised mess that lay beneath.

“Hm. Looks like hamburger meat. Doesn’t look broken though.” He prodded it tenderly.

“ _Ow_!” she shot at him, making the syllable two indignant tones.

“Hell of a bruise.” He dropped his cool lips in the center of the wound, soothing the swollen heat more than she would have imagined they could. “Should be better in a day or two, knowing you.”

She shrugged the dress back on and buttoned it up, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she worked at the buttons, suddenly embarrassed.

She blew a breath out of her nose, her teeth set in a grimace as she leaned back against the couch. He leaned back too, shrunken somehow, as if he were living entirely in his head.

She leaned against him, head leaning on his shoulder until he picked his arm up so she could crawl into his arms. She settled against him carefully, avoiding any pressure on her shoulder. He waited until her breathing evened, nestling his hand into her waist.

 ****

“You wanna go?”

“Go? We just got in.”

“Away from here? Just get away. Far away.”

“What the hell—Spike, what are you talking about? Like a vacation?”

He quirked his lips, annoyed.

“No, _not_ like a sodding vacation. I just mean _away_. We’ll go somewhere else and fight the demons.”

“We can’t go, we’ve got a lease.”

“So break it. Sublet. Hell, who gives a bloody damn, anyway, about some stupid contract?”

“Look, I’m sick of this Grumpy Gus routine. Whatever’s on your mind just say it.”

“I’m sayin’ it right now, ain’t I? Let’s go away.”

“What did they _tell_ you wherever you went? You've been all Broody-Vampire-Boy since you got back, and ok, just sayin', but I'm pretty sick of that particular brand. What could possibly be so bad?”

“I don’t remember,” he mumbled, ashamed. “It was part of the deal. I’d know it when I saw it, but not before.”

“So you want us to run away from San Francisco because you have a vague idea that something bad is going to happen? Correct me if I’m wrong--aren’t we here to _stop_ the bad things?”

“It’s not San Francisco. That’s what I mean. What’s left here but frightened fledglings and altruistic demons? Nothing the Scoobies can’t handle. I just wanna _go_. Let’s go somewhere and be--”

“You want to run away.”

“It’s _not_ running away? What the hell would we be running away from?”

“Spike..." She sat up, lacing her fingers with his and taking a breath before she looked him in the eyes. "Listen to me. When I was 17, I ran away. Hell, you _helped_ me run away from Glory. Then there was the time you were burning up in a blaze of imbecilic herosim and you _made_ me run away. I’m tired of running away from things. I’m going to face this—whatever it is. I’m going to face it with my friends.”

“Your friends? _Right_. ‘Cause I really see a whole lot of them here.”

“Don’t you dare—”

“Don’t what? Say what we’re both thinking? That they’ve all aban—”

“ _Spike_!”

They were standing. He didn’t know when they had stood, but they were standing.

“That they all ha—”

“ _Spike!_ ”

“They don’t need the protection anymore, Slayer. When was the last time you heard from—”

His vision went black, stars burst before his eyes, and he tasted blood in his mouth—grinning. She had a vicious look on her face, ready to hit him again if he said anything askance at all.

“Give it me good, Slayer,” he said, voice low, seductive. “Come on, pet. Show me what you’ve got.”

He dodged her fist, landing his own punch around her eye, sending her reeling. She hadn’t expected him to hit her. Sometimes it was like she forgot what he was. Sometimes it was like she was still the annoying idiot girl who had driven him out of his skull all those years in Sunnydale. Like she forgot he could even hit her. And sometimes they both just needed a good tussle. Always had. And they certainly weren't getting it on patrol these days.

He was in a headlock, Buffy’s arm wrapped around his neck from behind, her knees digging into his back as he slammed her backward against the wall. She gasped as the breath was knocked out of her and he heard and felt one of her ribs break. He grabbed her arm, and threw her, spinning her head over heels over his head and slamming her against the floor where she landed with a shout.

Pose victorious, smirk in place, he only barely managed the “Oh, boll—” before he realized she still had his hands in a vice-like grip and she had flipped him halfway across the room where he crashed into the newly mended old television set, shattering the screen and destroying the case—breaking it for good.

Rhythm demanded they slow. They both creaked back to their feet, Buffy catching her breath and Spike wobbling for a minute to control his vertigo. She winced when her ribs stabbed at her, and he rubbed his hand along his head trying to keep it from spinning.

“I’m not saying we should run away, Buffy. I’m saying there are better places than San Francisco. Places that need two crack demon fighters. Places that could use us. No one needs us here, love. Frisco’s dead. Hell, _you_ killed everything in it that needed killing. We could— _ow_.”

He was on the ground again, in a heap, propping himself up on one hand and holding his eye with the other. She had clocked him across his brow with her vicious right.

“Shut up,” she whispered desperately. “Shut up.”

He brought his hand down from his busted eye, resting his arm along his knee, looking up at her in that way that made her know she was in trouble because he was reading the deepest darkest places of her soul. And he was undoubtedly about to say the most harmful thing possible.

He shook his head with a sigh, dropping his gaze to his lap before he screwed up his mouth and swirled his head back up to look her full in the face so fiercely that she looked away.

“People still need you Buffy,” he said softly. “Just no one here.”

“I don’t—”

“Come away with me, Buffy.”

“Are you leaving?” she was suddenly suspicious, glaring at him and completely on the defensive.

“ _No_ ,” singing the syllable with a drawl. “Look,” he said, growing impatient. “You’re missing the point. I’m not going anywhere you’re not. But I’m saying there are places that need us. The Scoobies can handle all that’s left here. Except maybe the Slayer gangs—”

“See!”

“ _But_ ,” he cut into her protest, “you can’t handle all of them either. It’s not your responsibility—”

“It _is_ my responsibility. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault—”

“That they’re Slayers? That’s your fault sure. The rest they did themselves. You can’t take responsibility for everything they do. Plus, if they caught a glimpse of me they’d stake me on si—”

“No,” she cut him off. “No, if they staked you I’d kill them all. And they know it. They wouldn’t touch you.” She was so... so stern and frightening when she said that that he was certain she would do it without blinking, and it suddenly occurred to him just how deeply she loved him. She didn’t say it. Not hardly ever. But the realization thrilled him and terrified him at the same time. Love did such strange things—monstrous things—to people. And if anyone knew what love did to people it was certainly him. He stood then, creaking back to his feet and put his hands on her shoulders. She was standing tall, her back straight but not looking at him at all. She looked so strong and so broken at the same time.

He ran his hands down her arms, pressing his reassurance lightly into her skin, her hands hot in his own as he picked them up and held them before him.

“We’ll call it a vacation then. Somewhere so full of bloodsucking fiends we can slay to our hearts' delight. Like New Orleans. New Orleans in winter. S’nice. We’ll raid us some vampire lairs, kill us a few demons, have a jolly ol’ time, and then come home.”

She didn’t say anything. She was staring blankly at her hands held lightly in his.

“Buffy.” She was looking askance now, avoiding his gaze, trying to block out his words. Trying to block out the sharp truth of his damned tongue. “Look at me, love.” She raised her face to his but her eyes were still closed. He waited, giving her all the time she needed. When she finally opened them she was captivated by his face in the strange light from the knocked over lamp. All the shadows and planes were just as they always were. His eyes seemed to be glowing but she didn’t know if that was the light or the demon or the wild love that she knew burned beneath the surface—hell, burned _on_ the surface. “Call your sister. Call Willow. Call your boss. We’ll head out tonight. Tomorrow. Something. Make up excuses. Let’s get out of here.”

“Spike,” she said, her voice cracking. She swallowed, closed her eyes. She held his gaze again. “Tell me. Tell me the truth. Something’s coming.”

“Yeah,” he said simply, softly. “But we can’t do anymore good here. Won’t be any hurt we can save anyone from. Let’s go where the party is.”

She smiled a small smile and picked up the hands that held hers. “A-all right. I’ll... I’ll call them.”

“We’ll drive,” he said, his face breaking into a grin big enough and sincere enough to crack his face. “I’ll get a car.”

“Spike, that’s like a two day drive!” she shrieked.

“Yeah, and?”

There was a loud knock on the door. They both looked at it, looked at each other like the other had done it, then looked back at the door.

Buffy headed for it, Spike close on her heels and she stood on her toes to peer out the peep hole. She rolled her eyes with a groan. “It’s the cops again. That woman downstairs must’ve called them. Ugh!”

“Christ,” Spike said, rolling his eyes as well. “And don’t we look like hell. Well, open the door, we’ll get this over with.”

She had her hand on the doorknob. “They won’t go for the robber thing again, we told them that twice. They’re going to think we’re dealing drugs if we get that many robbers.”

There was another, much more insistent knock on the door.

“Open it, damn it.”

“Fine, geez.” Buffy pulled the door open to the full length of the chain and peered out, remembering too late that her right eye was rapidly swelling shut.

“Yes?” she said.

“Miss Summers?”

“Yes?”

“We’ve had another call about a disturbance coming from your apartment. Could we come in and talk to you for a minute? Again?”

She frantically looked behind her as Spike rushed around trying to pick up and hide the suspicious looking remains of various articles of furniture. He was staring fairly dumbfounded at the miserable pieces of the television when she decided it would be a good time to open the door and let the cops in. She slid the chain off and pulled the door wide.

The officers—one male and one female and, in fact, the same Officer Kline and Officer Gettes that had responded to the last four calls—walked in as she extended her hand in invitation.

“‘Lo,” Spike nodded at them, the cut above his eye bleeding weakly and his shirt so torn it didn't warrant being called a shirt anymore. His torso was laced with bruises and bangs that were mostly from their love-making. “Was movin’ it,” Spike said, pointing at the T.V. “Fell off. Broke all to hell, i’n’ it?” He ran a hand along his abdomen, realizing just how beaten he appeared, and scurried away into the bedroom to find another shirt to pull on.

“Miss Summers,” Officer Gettes said, turning on her sympathetic girlfriend routine. “This is the fifth call in two months that we’ve investigated at this address. Could I talk to you alone for a minute? Somewhere away from your... boyfriend?”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Sure. Let’s go into the kitchen.” She wiped at her brow, rolling her eyes when the back of her hand came away bloody. "Sorry," she said. "We were practicing judo. Um... again."

Once they were settled at the tiny table in the little nook of a kitchen, Officer Gettes took a deep breath and sighed. There wasn’t even a door to the room, but it was the closest thing to private they were going to get aside from the bedroom, where Officer Kline had gone and shut the door.

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re being pressured, and I certainly don’t want to be a bully here. I’m sure you love the guy, but it’s pretty obvious what happens in this apartment. I know we’ve run through this a million times, and I’ve got a case file as thick as a book on you two at headquarters. There’s just one question you need to answer for me.” Buffy felt her eyebrow raising so high that the tight swollen skin above her other eye was getting yanked up with it. “Do you feel safe here?”

She barked a laugh, her hand going instantly to cover her mouth and try and hold it back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Hang on.” She had her little giggles before she calmed down enough to take a breath and look Officer Gettes dead in the eye. “The only time I ever feel safe is if Spike’s around.” Her face had gone from mirthful to dead serious so quickly that it took Gettes aback. “And don’t you ever tell him that. Ever.”

Gettes cleared her throat and leaned forward, not adept at this sort of thing and knowing she’d get nothing out of either of them. She never had before and she _still_ for the life of her couldn’t decide if this was even a domestic violence situation or not. These two were so damned weird. She puzzled about it sometimes as she was trying to sleep. “Miss Summers. The man... he seems to be... I mean, he beats you.”

“Ok, three of the times the nice lady downstairs has called you have been when we destroyed our apartment having sex. Which happens on a regular basis. The other two were mild disagreements.”

“That involved fists.”

“We were just rearranging the furniture! Geez. The T.V. stand tipped and caught him in the face is all.”

“Caught you in the face too, huh?”

“No, I got attacked coming home from work—”

“Did you report that?”

“R-report?” Buffy thought back to the vamp she had lured into an alley on her way to the trolley. “No. No, it’s all right. I wasn’t hurt.”

Gettes raised her eyebrow. Always the excuses with these two. Always the perfectly legitimate excuses. Sometimes she was tempted to just arrest the both of them and save herself the trouble.

“Look, I’m not hurt, he’s not a hurt, we’re both a little sore for a while and, seriously, even when we do fight we kiss and make up at the end and everything’s hunky-dorey. And the making up usually leaves more bruises than the fists do, ok? That's just how we work.”

“You’re not hurt?” Gettes said skeptically.

The Slayer grinned a feral little grin. “Believe it or not, yes. We’re not hurt. And the quadruple negatives in that sentence are hurting my brain.”

Gettes sighed, knowing there was nothing she could do except get them to keep it down. The various kinks of the citizens of San Francisco (if that’s what all this was) were none of her business. “All right,” she said, standing up reluctantly. “Well... all right.”

She had no idea what to say. She didn’t know if this was denial, or domestic abuse—or which side the abuse would even be from judging by the way they both always looked on these calls—or if this really was just some strange fetish thing that they seemed to get off on. She only wished they could live on the ground floor, or above someone who constantly listened to heavy metal turned up to eleven and who wouldn’t be able to hear them.

Kline had emerged from the bedroom as well, with Spike leaning against the doorway, one hell of a shiner swelling up around his eye. It wasn’t anything—it wouldn’t even be there anymore in a few hours. Neither would Buffy’s. But the cops always did seem to show up just as they’d finished a fight. Such was the way.

Buffy saw the two officers to the door and ushered them a bit too quickly over the threshold closing the door behind them. She leaned her forehead against the wood and gave it a soft little bang.

“You’re a bad girl,” Spike said, his voice right in her ear. “You beat me and I take it. Nice Officer Kline wanted me to press charges. Said there wasn’t any shame in being thrashed by a woman.” She felt him pressing against her, one cool hand against her buttocks, running down her thigh to the bottom of the waitress uniform she still wore. She melted against the door, allowing him as much access as he could ever want. His fingers played with the hem of the dress, teasing her. “Told him to sod off and it was none of his business how I got my rocks off. Think I scared him a little, regaling him with tales of our exploits.”

“Spike! That’s none of their—oh...”

“No, guess it’s not. But the only reason they haven’t arrested us yet is ‘cause I keep him updated on just what all the banging and crashing is.”

She blushed. “I—I...tell Gettes the same thing. Ah!” A moan fell from her lips. Dear god, his _fingers_. “Good girls love bad boys, blah blah blah. It’s— _oh_ , there, yes—let’s... uhn. Let’s break something else. She won’t call them twice in one night.”

He grinned a devious grin. “Just how bad a girl are you, Slayer?”

She grinned too, eyes closed, thinking about just how rhetorical that question was coming from him. “Why don’t we find out?”

 *****   
****

It was an old junker of a car, but it was one of those models that was impossible to kill and it was only $100 from the teenage punk he’d bought it from, so who was he to complain? He pulled it up outside of her apartment building and it rattled to a halt, grumbling when he powered down the motor and protesting with loud squeaky hinges when he opened the door to step out into the street. He dropped his cigarette on the cold pavement and ground it under his heavy-heeled boots. He closed the door with a slam and leaned back against it, arms crossed broodingly across his middle, waiting. She should be down soon. She would know that he'd made it back. That was the way she was. She would know.

There was a rattle up the stairs, a jingle of keys, and the Slayer came pelting out the door, skittish like a rabbit, as if someone was about to walk around the corner and call her out for stealing candy at the convenience store.

"Buffy," he said, and her head snapped around. She locked eyes with him, tempted, he could tell, to dart them every which way to make sure they wouldn't be seen. "Is that all?" He tipped his head to indicate the large leather duffle bag that she had slung over her good shoulder.

"Yeah," she said. "Mostly clothes and stuff.” She chucked it down the stairs and it landed with a flump and a thud as she ducked back through the door and called over her shoulder, “This one's got the weapons."

"Ah, yes, the Slayer arsenal," he said as she pulled an even larger bag through the open doorway behind her, whipping the door shut and locking it back with a jingle. Spike popped the trunk and, with a cocky hand-wave, indicated that the space was ready for her belongings. She slung the weapons bag up on her shoulder and flounced down the stairs so quickly he was afraid she would trip, but she just made it to the bottom and in one smooth motion, threw both bags into the back and slammed the door with a bang.

"Ready?"

"Yeah, let's go."

She practically threw herself into the front seat and slammed the door shut behind her. He climbed behind the wheel and they headed out of San Francisco.

“This is just for a month. Just to try it out. Dawn said she’d watch the apartment, and I left her the money for rent.”

“Right. Just for a month or two.”

Or three. Or four. Or forever.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike have a few things to talk about on the first leg of their cross-country road-trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also posted on LJ at [wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/4456.html).
> 
> A/N: I am aware that there is an episode of Angel that suggests that Sunnydale is actually north of LA. I was way too lazy to modify this accordingly. The song that Spike sings is "No Place Like London" from Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim. And the reference to Angel is just me making an amusing extrapolation that the height of pop culture for Spike seems to be morbid Tim Burton movies (which I took from "A Hole in the World" and his "Christmasland" comment.)

"Is New Orleans really that bad?" Her elbow was propped on the door and her fingers were running absentmindedly through her hair. He kept trying to steal glances while watching the road. It wasn’t working out very well.

"Long story, that. Didn't used to be. Was actually a nice place to rest back in the day. Vacation spot, and the like. Only this bird got wind of all the vampires staying in town and got ideas. Wrote a book, blah blah. You know how all that goes."

"Was it about you?"

"Me? God, no. That sappy one the girls read is about me though."

"The one about the creepy stalker who can't leave a girl alone?"

He bobbed his head back and forth, mulishly. "Mmyeah, that'd be the one."

A grin crept up the sides of her mouth as she tried to hold it down. His grin in return showed teeth. They flashed in the moonlight.

"So a lady wrote a book. Now what?"

"Now every time some fledgling vampire sees things aren't going their way, they go to New Orleans and wreak havoc on the locals. Lots of vampire groupies—whole clubs devoted to getting bitten. It's quite the scene they say. _Ob_ scene, anyway. There's no fun in it if they just give it up."

That got an eyebrow raised all the way to the sky.

"Wha'?"

She shook her head, still desperately holding the grin down by the center of her lips. "Nothing."

"Wha'?"

"Stalker."

"And?"

"Nothing."

"Right then. What with all the trash that bint Harmony keeps spreading, and all manner of other ugly things going on, you can imagine the fledglings are seeking a bit of solace and comfort—grouping together somewhere they feel safe. You can also imagine how the older ones feel, already entrenched there."

"Just tell me, how many of them call themselves Lestat?"

"All of them, baby. Every vampire in New Orleans is Lestat."

"Great. A city full of vicious brooders."

"Louis was the dark, handsome, heavily-browed brooder. Lestat was the suave, blonde, and seductively vicious killer. Keep your high-literature straight, love."

*****

He sped through L.A. as quickly as possible, not wanting to even think about where they were. Not wanting to think about all the strange and painful things that had gone on there. He didn’t wake her, although he knew she’d like to get one last look at it--the whole city lit up in the night. That was the only real way that either of them knew Los Angeles--in the night. It glowed and glistened and didn’t give the slightest hint as to the things that went on beneath the glittery surface. Strange damn town. When they had passed through, he noted that the sign for Sunnydale had a blank reflective green sheet riveted over top. No use to show her that either. Somehow he imagined that would be one of those things to stir up the tears. They passed into the desert.

When the sun began to tinge the eastern sky a paler blue, and started throwing purples and subtle pinks into the ripples of the clouds, he shook her awake.

"Buffy."

"Nhm?" she was rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Get up, love. I can't drive much longer or I'll get the car all dusty."

"Oh. Oh!" She was awake quickly enough after that.

He pulled to the side of the deserted desert road, the sky tinged lavender, and pink edging out the darkness of the night.

“You sure you want me to drive?”

“Not feeling the urge to combust.”

“Ok, then,” she sang, as if this somehow left her free of responsibility for whatever might happen.

She popped open her door and hustled around the front of the car, giving a mighty stretch and a yawn, dropping her fist daintily to cover her wide open mouth. She blinked and gave her head a little shake to clear it as she made it to his side of the car, pulling at the door handle and opening the door, waiting for him to climb out.

He sat there, motionless, a dreamy look on his face staring faraway at where the sun was threatening to peek above the perfectly level line of the desert horizon.

“Spike?”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“What? The sun? Yeah, real pretty when you disintegrate. Get _out_ will you?”

“Right.” He hauled himself out of the car, face to face with the Slayer who pinned him against the car, hands resting demurely on top of the door. She leveraged herself on it, sliding herself up the metal until her feet didn’t even touch the ground, her lips just barely tracing along his in a ghost of a kiss. The hinges on the old car creaked, and visions of burning alive beneath metal wreckage flitted through Spike's head before her lips crashed hard against his. The fingers of the one hand he could get free moved to her hair, cradling the base of her skull. He swore he could feel the heat of her body even through the metal and plastic and glass.

“Have you ever had sex in a car?” she said, pulling back abruptly, suddenly contemplative.

“Uh...” he tried to remember which way was up. “Sure.”

“I’ve always had the distinct impression that that was something every teenager was supposed to do.”

“Right...”

“I never managed to find the time for it. What with all the Slayage and Apocalypses and saving the world and all that.”

“Buffy--”

“I wonder if the back seat is big enough?”

“Buffy, love--”

“I think we should at least give it a try, don’t you?”

“Can we do it some other time? Like, say, when I’m not about to get extra crispy?”

She smiled impishly, not relinquishing her hold on him at all. The first red lip of the sun glared brilliantly across the landscape throwing half of her face into sharp relief as her eyes dared him to move.

She leaned forward again, taking his bottom lip gently between her teeth and giving it a languorous tug that had him ready to rip the door off its hinges and throw it across the road, just to get it out of the way. The sun began to sting at his cheek, and his moan turned into a squeal of pain.

“Ow, _ow_.” She let him go with a grin that showed all of her teeth, flashing brilliantly in the early morning sun. He dove for the backdoor, fumbling with the handle in his haste and whipping it open as quickly as he could, casting himself along the backseat and throwing his blanket over his head.

Deviant girl.

“Pull your feet in,” she said. He scrunched himself into a tiny ball and the door closed with a clunk, sending the car rocking. He felt the suspension shift slightly when she sat down in the front seat, pulling the door shut behind her and heard the soft snick as she buckled her seatbelt. She sat for a moment, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh.

“It is beautiful,” she said. “I wish you could watch it with me.”

“Tell me.”

“Hm?” she was digging around for something. From the sound of it when she stopped digging, it was probably her sunglasses.

“Tell me what it’s like.”

And so she started the car, pulling carefully out on to the road. She described for at least an hour every stage of the sun rising--every nuance of color and level of light in more poetic terms than he could ever dream of coming up with. Something about it swelled his heart to the point where, burns be damned, he dropped the blanket just for a second, just to get a peek at the way the sky was set on fire. What he saw instead was her profile, aviators perched on the bridge of her nose, one hand propped on the top of the steering wheel, the other resting lightly in her lap. She was bathed in a brilliant pink light and the sky behind her was all violet. It was worth the burn to his forehead just for that one early morning image forever imprinted on his mind.

“Well, it’s up now,” she said. “Just looks like day anymore.”

He didn’t really know what to say after that. There wasn’t anything he could say that would convey what he felt. So he shifted around until his head was behind her seat and reached out a hand to feel the soft fabric of her shirt, pulling at it until he managed to lay a hand against her waist.

Her free hand gave his a little squeeze. “Better pull that back in before you catch us both on fire.”

After that the roar of the engine and gentle rumble of the road beneath the tires lulled him to sleep, safe and tucked away from the rays of the sun.

*****

He woke a few times during the day, the heat from the sun on his blanket a tell-tale sign that he wasn’t meant to stir. The car would stop, the engine would rumble to a halt, and the door would creak open, shifting slightly as Buffy got out and slammed it shut. She would always return a few minutes later, usually with something that smelled delectable (or, on one occasion, like it was greasy enough to induce instant heart attack.)

Sometime around what he gauged to be mid-afternoon she fiddled with the radio, racing through static and the twang of steel guitars and whiny voices until she settled on what seemed to be a classic rock station with the mumbled approval of finding it “acceptable, anyway.”

“Spike?” she said, loud enough that he knew she wasn’t just entertaining herself like she seemed to have been doing all day, talking to the scenery and the other cars on the road. “You hungry?”

“I’m all right. Had a big meal before we left.”

“I’m not even going to ask. It’s about dinner time for me. I’m gonna stop and get a hamburger or something.”

“How you doin’, pet?”

He could see her shrug in his mind’s eye. “Good enough. We just passed the New Mexico border a little while ago. You slept through Arizona.”

“Good. I can’t stand Arizona.”

“Lucky me, then.”

“Sun down yet?”

“No, almost. How about I wait to eat until it’s down and we can switch?”

“Tired?”

“Tired as hell. It’s stupid how tired you get just from sitting on your ass and driving a car.”

He chuckled agreement.

“Wish I could see you.”

“How dead do you want to be right now?”

“I presume that was rhetorical?”

He could practically see her rolling her eyes in his mind’s eye. He had a really good mind's eye. 20/20.

“Go back to sleep. I’ll get you up when we stop.”

“How up you need me, love?” His hand was working its way back around to her front.

“You’re _trying_ to make me run off the road, aren’t you?”

“Is it working?”

“No. Yes.” She slapped at his hand. “Stop that.”

He pulled all of his combustible parts back under the blanket and rolled over with a sigh.

“Is the sun setting yet?”

“Close enough.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You liked that, didn’t you?” He could hear the soft smile in her voice. It made his chest feel tight.

“Yeah.” His voice was huskier than he’d intended.

“It’s really not as great, you know. The sunset driving east. Can’t see it except in the mirrors.”

“Tell me anyway.”

And so, for the next hour, he listened to the music of her voice as she lyrically described the sun fading from the sky, ending her soliloquy with “And now I’m starving and I see a Burger King so I’m stopping and you’re driving.”

She pulled into the parking lot, stepping out of the car and slamming the door shut behind her, pushing her hair behind her ear and opening to back door. She yanked the blanket to the floor and held her hand out for him to grab, pulling him from the back seat as if helping a starlet from a limousine. She pressed him against the car, hand on his chest, and her eyes smoldered so brightly that he thought he was in for a public stripping right where all the kiddies could see them through the restaurant windows.

She leaned in, her arms wrapping around his waist, her head nestled against his chest and she breathed in a long draught of his scent. He closed the car door with a thunk before wrapping his arms around her, gently holding her, just enjoying the feel and the heat of her against him. Every time she did the mushy stuff it surprised him, and every time he thought _I could get used to this_. He still wasn’t.

“Road trips are better with someone to talk to.”

“Someone aside from the car, the road, the other drivers, and the passing cactus plants?”

She smacked him sharply on the ass.

“ _Ah-ha_ -how,” he ended the outraged syllable with a small chuckle, giving her a squeeze. “Keep that up and we really will give the kiddies a show.”

“What?” She pulled back from him, utterly confused. He nodded his head in the direction of the restaurant. She turned to look, spotting the stunned looking children making grossed-out faces at the table inside. She pulled back from him slightly, hands resting on his chest. His were still entwined around her waist, only letting her retreat so far. “Oh,” she said finally, her cheeks tinged with a rare delicate pink blush that his heart devoured like a gourmet dessert and stowed away for hard times. She pushed away from him entirely and dove back through the front door quickly to retrieve her purse from the passenger side floorboard and sling it over her shoulder. She slammed the door and locked it with a shaky clatter of keys before holding them out to him.

“What’s this?”

“You’re driving. I’m sleeping.”

He held out his hand and the keys fell jingling into his palm. He put them in his pocket, leaving his hand there like a brooding James Dean wannabe, shrugging sultrily at her as she clutched at the strap of her purse like it was a roller coaster seat belt. She cleared her throat, took a breath, and walked inside.

After she had ordered her processed meat and fried potatoes they sat at a table, staring blankly at the silent television monitor, watching the news flicker by in the background.

“So we passed Tucson then?”

“Yeah, went right through it. Phoenix too. You sleep hard.”

“Fairly certain you saw to that, love,” he quipped, adjusting his crotch with an overly large gesture.

She shot him a glare clearly insisting that he tone it down. “What is with you and Tucson anyway?”

“Dunno. Something about it. It’s all too familiar and completely foreign at the same time.”

She studied his face as she munched at her french fries. “You didn’t have funny dreams about it, did you? The explosion or whatever? That building that got blown up?”

He shrugged. “Nah. Think it’s whatever mojo they worked on me in San Diego.”

“I still don’t get why you had to go to San Diego to find a seer. There’s a ton in San Francisco.”

“Was after a certain thing, needed a certain man. Found him, got it, came home.”

“And you don’t even remember.”

He shrugged again. “Was part of the deal.”

She took a long draw on her Coke. “You don’t even remember what you went to see him about.”

“Had a hunch. Followed it.”

“Don’t remember.”

He shrugged again. “Was part of--”

“--The Deal. Yeah. Got that part. Apparently running away from everyone and everything we know is also part of the deal.”

“California’s a shit hole.”

“Hey! That’s my home you’re talking about, Mister!”

“Not like anywhere else is any better.” He broke out into brief rhythmic singing

_There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit_

_And it’s filled with people who are filled with shit_

_And the vermin of the world inhabit it_.

She stopped chewing and quirked an eyebrow. “Tell me you did that voluntarily.”

“Wuhl... yeah, I _do_ sing on occasion without magical intervention.”

“What the hell was that?”

He rolled his eyes. “You two, I swear. You never get out.”

“Spike? Just me. See? Just one of me.”

“Angel--”

Her face was ashen gray in a heartbeat. He knew that was the wrong thing to say even before he said it--knew as the word left his mouth that he should pull it back in, tie it down, and never ever let it leave his lips again. He searched her stricken heartbroken face, eyes all concern and apology. She swallowed whatever she’d been chewing and looked away.

“God, Buffy, I--”

She pulled her hand away from his where he was trying to take it. Her fingers made a fleeting graceful motion of dismissal before disappearing into her lap beneath the table and out of sight.

“Forget it. Just... just forget it.” She stared off into the distance, looking out the window at the dimly lit parking lot. “Let’s go, yeah?” She pushed away from the table with a squeal from the chair legs and picked up her tray abruptly, dumping the empty wrappers and papers in the trash on her way by. “I’ll be out in a minute. Who knows when the next rest area will be.” She flitted into the bathroom and he mentally kicked himself all the way back to the car.

He climbed in behind the wheel and adjusted all the bits that needed adjusting after such a shorty had been driving all day. Once he was settled he sat there, eyes closed, trying to regain his center. Trying to find that careful balance that he knew he always had to keep with Buffy. He was her reprieve. He was where she could go with anything. But he knew there were things she didn’t want to bring him. She was like a cat, hoarding half the dead mice for herself and letting them rot under the house where she brooded over her depressing collection. At least out in the open things like that could be admired, appreciated, and then disposed of at the proper time in the proper way. He hated to let things fester.

He shouted one brief, frustrated, throat-tearing scream. He flopped his head back against the headrest, taking a breath to try and steady himself. Sometimes a good in-out of air worked. He gave up and dug in his pockets for his cigarettes.

When Buffy finally came out the door and plopped in the passenger seat beside him, he was nearly down to the filter, and dropped it out the window with a flick. He blew the last puff of smoke out of his lungs and into the night air.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you wanna crawl in back and sleep?”

“Nah. Wanna stay up. With you. I want to... I dunno. Talk.”

“Talk? About what?” His heart fell, terrified at what exactly she could have to talk about.

She shrugged. “Just talk. Just... just be. You and me on the road at night. It’s... nice.”

She reached a hand over, placing it gently on his knee where she gave it two soft pats before she pulled it back in, like a turtle retreating to its shell.

“All right then.” He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, back onto the wide open road in the darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike attempt to make good on kinky promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also posted on LJ at [wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/4731.html).

The desert was pretty scarce on places to pull over and park--park in the sense of tearing off each others' clothes and fucking their brains out. But the road was fairly deserted out in the middle of nowhere so when he felt Buffy giving a tug on his coat sleeve and pointing off to the side of the road saying "stop here," she didn't have to say it twice.

He turned off the lights and the engine, the car's roar dying away and leaving the gentle silence and the whir of the desert insects in its wake. She smiled at him, head cocked at an angle, eyes starting at his feet and working their way up. Slowly she devoured the sight of him and the smile grew bigger as she made her way north, teeth finally flashing in the moonlight when she made it to his face. She licked her lips, her teeth catching her bottom lip and giving it a little bite before her face grew devious again and she opened the car door and got out.

He got out too, completely on the same page. They were in front of the car, his hands in her hair, hers under his shirt with nails scraping lightly across the skin of his back. They crashed together, hands clutching, lips bruising, tasting each other like some rich gourmet confection. She peeled his coat off his shoulders quickly and he shrugged it off, hands breaking contact with her skin just long enough to drop it to the dusty ground. He used the opportunity to peel hers off as well and she threw it haphazardly onto the hood of the car. Her hands were at the hem of his shirt, tugging the front untucked, slipping it over his upraised arms and dropping it on top of her coat. His fingers played along the nape of her neck, roving to the spaghetti straps of her tank top. He dropped them off her shoulders, pulling his lips away from hers with a sigh like he'd just been handed a glass of ice water in Hell. His lips pressed wet kisses against her breastbone, pulling the shirt down to her waist. He took a nipple in his mouth, suckling gently, persistently. Her leg wrapped around his, pulling desperately at him, buckling his knee. He swung her in the direction of the car, sitting her on the hood as she knocked him off balance and let her breast go with a soft smacking noise. He nuzzled his nose against her breastbone.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, trying gently to remind him that there were better things than boobs to attend to. She ground against him and he pulled his head up, looking her in the eye.

They always did this to each other--there was something magnetic in their gaze. Once it was locked it seemed to pull at them--to rip at their insides until one or the other had to look away. She looked away first, a goofy sultry grin on her face, arms stretched above her head, flaying out behind her like a bird stretching its wings. He pulled her to him, catching her as she leaned backward, her back arching around his hands, her neck long and bare before him. He couldn't resist putting his mouth there, feeling the blood pumping strong and warm beneath his lips. Her pulse jumped when he scraped his teeth against her skin and he chuckled softly into the swiftly cooling night.

She brought her eyes back to his, licking her lips again before leaning forward to capture his. Her tongue roved through his mouth in long languid strokes. "Spike," she said, pulling back and pressing a soft kiss against his temple, his cheek, back to his lips. "I want you."

By the way she was grinding against him she didn't even have to say that. "Buffy," the rest was cut off by her mouth.

She was shimmying against him, desperately trying to rid herself of the jeans in the way. She had the button undone, and the fly open. Frustrated, she began to work at his, fumbling yet so eager that even her fumbling was efficient enough to open his belt buckle, button and fly all in quick desperation. She coaxed out his half erect cock, her fingers wrapping around it with a groan. It sprang to attention.

He stepped back, her legs dropping from around his waist. She looked at him, eyebrows quirked, looking mildly hurt. His fingertips were pressing at her waist, trailing over her hips, gently pushing just enough so that she would turn. She rolled over, feet on the ground, stomach and breasts pressed against the still warm hood of the car. She caught her lip between her teeth, his hands yanking the waistband of her jeans down far enough to give him access.

He paused, close enough to feel the nimbus of heat from her body and just tantalizing her skin with the ghost of his touch. "Spike, _please_ \--"

Oh, he loved it when she begged. His left hand holding her steady, he touched a fingertip to the base of her skull, running it gently down her neck and across every single vertebrae in her spine so lightly that he barely disturbed the hair. She moaned, trying her hardest not to writhe, not to destroy the fabulous sensation of atmospheric disturbance hovering just above her skin. He continued his trail south, into the small of her back, down her tailbone. His palm spread across her ass, unable to resist touching the soft flesh, pressing against it, squeezing it with delight. Her forehead conked against the hood with a metallic thunk. He dipped a finger into her, her heat and wetness muddling his brain, making him forget whatever game they had been playing.

He pulled back slightly, only to line himself up to sheath himself fully inside her in one long slow thrust.

She moaned, hands seeking leverage against the warm metal. Spike leaned down to flatten himself against her, pressing every inch of skin that he could against her back. His hands went to her hips, holding her tight, possessing her. He dropped a kiss behind her ear, then ran his tongue along the crease where her ear met her skull.

"You're trying to kill me," she said softly. "You're _still_ trying to kill."

"How'm I doin'?"

"Consider me slain."

He drew out, just to the tip before plunging swiftly back in, knowing just how to twist his hips to hit that spot that made her--

"Oh!"

\--Scream.

"You're mine, Slayer," he whispered against her ear.

"Yes," she cried. "Yes, yes."

"Tell me you want it."

"I want it, Spike."

"Didn't hear that, love."

"Oh, _god_ , oh god. I _need_ it Spike. _Please_!"

They didn't even rock together, they slammed. He varied stroke speed, giving their love making a random frantic pace. Buffy arched her back, trying to gain purchase with her elbows, pressing herself against him with every thrust, anticipating just what his next move would be. It was _so_ not a dance. It was a fight. Leave it to them to get the two hopelessly fucked up.

"Spike, please--"

"Tell me."

"Make me come... I've gotta come."

"You want it?"

"Please..."

He fell into a rhythm, threatening to drive himself over the edge just as surely as he would her.

She dropped her head again, undulating her ass against him as a low throaty scream erupted from her, collapsing against the hood of the car, her cheek pressing against the metal, face screwed up in ecstasy. Her hips still moved, bucking slightly against him in the aftermath.

He came shortly thereafter, the look on her face enough to send him over the edge. He collapsed on top of her, covering her body with his. He rose and fell as she breathed beneath him. Her heartbeat pounded through him. God, there were some things about sex with a human--with _Buffy_ —that were always new, no matter how familiar they got.

They lay like that for a while, oblivious to everything.

"Spike," she finally said.

"Hm?"

"There's a car coming."

There was a car coming. You could see the headlights from miles away.

He raised himself on his hands, pulling out and trying to make himself look like a reasonably rumpled traveler rather than a sexed-up vampire. She pulled her clothing back into place, picking up his shirt and tossing it to him. He caught it, pulling it over his head and picking up his coat. He flapped at it briefly to remove some of the dust. The car sped by without so much as hitting the brakes, lighting the scene briefly with the brilliant glare of headlights.

He shrugged into his coat, popping the collar to fold it back down flat and proper. "Ready to go, love?"

She was perched on the hood, heel hooked on the fender, hands wrapped around her knee, watching him.

"I said sex _in_ a car, Spike. Not on a car."

One side of his mouth quirked up in a deviant little grin.

"There's a lot of road left, still."

She smiled back, softly, her eyes with that frightening mixture of dependence and strength that always made his insides boil.

With a sudden breath she snapped out of it, rapping her knuckles sharply on the hood beside her and snatching her coat up in her hand. "Come on. We're burning moonlight."

And they got back into the car, started it up, and pulled out onto the road.

*****

Spike had been driving for a while now with Buffy leaned against the door, teeth jostling in her head as they cruised down the road. She couldn’t sleep. She lay there, curled into an awkward position as comfortable as she could get. Her breathing was even, but her eyes were open, her eyelids drooping. She clearly wanted desperately to sleep. He reached over and flipped a bit of hair behind her shoulder so that he could see her face. She swiveled her eyes to look at him, gave him a weak smile, and returned her gaze to the place where the window glass disappeared into the door. He left his hand on her shoulder, enjoying the soft warmth of her skin.

“How you doin’, love?”

She barely shrugged her shoulders.

“Tired?”

She nodded a small nod.

“Can’t sleep?”

She shook her head.

“Well, you’ve been drivin’ all day, I could suck a horse dry, and it’s nearly four in the morning. We’ll stop at the next place for food and then find somewhere to bed you down. Sound all right?”

She smiled at him weakly again, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes as she let it out in a sigh.

“Where exactly do you get blood at four A.M.?”

“ _Not_ from the vein?”

She shot him an unamused glare and he chuckled, running his thumb affectionately across the peak of her shoulder bone.

“We’ll find somewhere, love. I brought some with just in case. It’s cold, but I’ll manage. I just thought you might be ready to gnaw at fingers.”

She shrugged again, so tired he had no idea how she was still awake or how anything could have kept her from sleeping. She seemed to be held in a limbo of wakefulness, her brain functioning at about the level of a zombie’s.

There was one of those all night breakfast places on the next exit and he took it, pleased with himself for finding sustenance for his lady. She sat up, pulling her shoes back on in such a groggy fog that he doubted whether she even had higher brain function. Her eyes looked sticky, her eyelids drooping helplessly. He pulled into the parking lot, cut the engine, and then hurried around to open the door for her and hand her out.

“Hungry?”

She shrugged. “Breakfast is better with you around though. Better eat while the sun is down.”

The bell on the door tinkled as they walked in. The place was mostly deserted except for the leathery middle aged lady with brilliantly dyed red hair behind the counter and the one or two greasy looking truckers smoking in the corner over their waffles and bacon.

“What’ll it be, kids?” the lady said, pulling a pen from where it was jabbed into her hairdo and whipping a pad of paper out of an apron pocket.

“Got a cuppa tea?”

“Iced, unsweet.”

“That’ll do. And for my lady?” he asked, a soft smile flitting onto her face at his wording. He knew she was dead on her feet after that--she usually shot him a glare of some sort.

“I’ll have pancakes with little chocolate chips and bacon and syrup with a glass of orange juice.”

The woman scribbled, jabbed the clicky end of the pen onto the pad to retract the point, then shoved it back in her hair. “Coming right up, cutie.”

Spike perched himself on one of the stools at the counter, a hand in the small of Buffy’s back to make sure she could make it onto the stool beside him. She seemed to get dizzy when she was running on no sleep. She walked into things and swayed.

She propped her head in her hands, her arms like two legs of a tripod with elbows propped on the counter top. His hand ran a small warm circuit across her back, fingers playing lightly in the bottom of her hair.

“How you doin’, love?”

No part of her moved except her eyes, which glanced sideways to give him a look that clearly said she’d rather be dead to the world at the moment.

“We’ll stop soon. Gotta be a motel around her somewhere.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Food’s coming.”

“You got money?”

“You’ve got plenty.”

“You got any?”

“I’ve got enough.”

“We’re crazy.”

“Yeah... well, I’ve known that to start with.”

“Who the hell just hauls off and leaves home? In the middle of the night? And drives across the whole frickin’ country to fight vam--”

The pressure from his hand on her back made her stop midword.

“Uh... yeah.” Normally she would have suavely converted that to some other word of similar spelling and sound. She looked around at the two truckers. They puffed away at their cigarettes and ate their food with the occasional clatter of metal on ceramic. They didn’t seem to be paying the two newcomers any attention at all.

She sighed a heavy sigh which turned into a huge yawn the likes of which even a lion would be jealous of. She scrubbed heartily at her face with her hands, as if trying to rub the sleep from them even though sleep refused to come.

She seemed to pitch sideways ever so slowly. Slowly, slowly she tilted closer and closer until her head bumped into his shoulder and she laid there, forehead pressed against the bone. He draped his arm around her, hand resting lightly in her waist. “We’ll be all right, love. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

The waitress slapped a coffee mug on the counter with a clatter and filled it with a noisy slosh, shoving the weak looking tea in Spike’s direction. She was studying Buffy from top to bottom.

“Where you two headed?”

“New Orleans,” Spike supplied.

“Been driving a while?”

“Two days.”

“Geez, that long?”

“Not quite,” Buffy offered. “But we haven’t stopped to sleep yet.”

“There’s a motel across the way. Down the road about half a mile. They take ‘em in at all hours. Could stop there if you like. Tell ‘em Maggie sent you. Getcha a discount. Bert’s my brother-in-law, he runs the place.”

“Thanks,” Spike said. “We’ll do that.”

Buffy’s pancakes showed up and she sat up, shrugging off Spike’s arm. She reached for the cutlery basket, pulling out a fork and knife and attacking the plate with gusto. It didn’t take too long to clean.

Spike paid up and they walked back out the door with a tinkle of bell. “Remember!” the lady called after them. “Tell him Maggie sent you!”

They found the little motel, walked in, told the guy Maggie sent them, and were soon installed in a tiny clean little room in the far corner of the establishment.

"Next time, can we play running from _your_ father?" she asked groggily.

"Not my fault I look bad enough to steal you away from your loving home. You're the one who was all innocence and tired eyes."

"Mm," she acquiesced or agreed or gave up or something, flopping down in a free fall across the bed. She dropped her bag to the ground with a heavy thunk, as if an afterthought. "M'tired."

"Sleep, love. I'll keep watch."

"Spike?"

She was propped up on her elbows, looking back at him over her shoulder. He gave a sort of half shrug, as if to say "what?"

"We're in the middle of nowhere. There's no place for anything nasty to hide--hell, no place for anything nasty to be out in the open. Can we just sleep?"

"Go ahead."

"I mean, both of us. You've been driving for a long time too. Sleep the sun away and be fresh and ready for the road when the light's gone."

She had moved over far enough to make an obvious space for him to fit, her body curled around the air like an invitation. _This is where you should be_ , it said. So he made sure the doors and windows were locked up tight, turned off the lamp, and climbed into bed beside her, enjoying her proximity.

Her breathing grew even and he was fairly certain that she was asleep, leaving him free to ponder the own workings of his brain. He wasn't good for thinking, which led him again to wonder why on earth he had gotten it into his head to go to San Diego and see that guy. Even if he could remember what the hell it was he was told and why he had gone, it wasn't like there was much he could do with the information. Pass it on to Buffy, he supposed. They'd mull it out together. Or no--she'd give it to Willow who'd work it out--or no. No, times like those were long past. He had gone for the information because he was the only one who could get it. Because he was the only one who could piece it together and hold it up to the light without giant holes showing through. If only he could--

He heard her whispering in the darkness, wondering if she realized he could hear her. She was talking to _him_ , he realized a few minutes later. Of course she would know he could hear her. Who the hell did he think he was dealing with?

“Sometimes I just want to go home. Not 'Frisco home, _home_ home. I just want to go to school and get terrorized by Snyder and have Giles scowl at me in the library all day. I want to walk in the front door and drop my bag and not do my homework until it’s so late that Willow has to rescue me from it. I want my mom to make me dinner and watch a sappy movie with me that makes me cry because it hits so close to home. I want to sleep in my bed with Mr. Gordo and worry about what you’re doing now to kill me. I want to have Xander moon around after me and get his ass kicked and manage, somehow, to still be alive. I want Angel--” her voice choked off. “I—I... well. Everybody wants stupid things they can’t ever have.”

He planted a kiss in her hair.

“Everybody wants to be a kid again, love. Even people with sucky childhoods. Or none at all, as the case may be,” he added, rolling over and slinging his arm around her waist, nestling it securely in her curves.

“I guess,” she said at the same level--the same barely audible whisper. It was as if her thoughts had leaked out of her head like air escaping into a vacuum--desperate and under pressure but fighting to stay put. He wondered for the billionth time just when he had acquired that level of trust.

“If it’ll help any, I can go outside and plot to kill you.”

She snorted a soft laugh. He could tell she was well on her way to Dreamland.

“Ok, sure,” she said. “That would be...” a yawn cut into her thoughts. “Nice.”

Which brought a smile to his face anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike stop off at a crappy motel to get some sleep. Which they do. But that's not what crappy motels are really for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also posted on LJ at [wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/5108.html).

She slept the entire day and straight into the night. He didn’t have the heart to rouse her, even with all the good moonlight they were wasting. It was around nine o’clock when she finally woke.

“Morning, sunshine,” he said when her eyes opened and looked straight into his next to her on the pillow.

“Is it morning?”

“No, you slept the day away. Thought I’d have to go all Prince Charming and kiss you to get you up.”

“Get me up, or you up?”

She was rewarded for her cheek with a sly grin and a happily roving hand.

“Mm,” she arched against him. “What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“Nine o’clock! Geez, we’ve got to get back on the road!”

He shrugged. “I rather like it here at the moment.” His lips painted coats of kisses against her neck, sweeping from her jaw to her collarbone. She closed her eyes against the sensation, blinking heavily and rubbing at her eyes to rid herself of sleep.

“Let’s see,” she said, stretching beneath him, seeming to ignore his actions entirely. “We need to shower, pack up, get in the car, and drive until dawn. And, poor me, I suddenly seem to have lost the ability to scrub those hard to reach places. Whoever will I find to help me?”

She felt the rumbling laughter in his throat as he chuckled against her flesh. “Are you taking volunteers?”

“Who could I find to volunteer in this barren wasteland?” Her voice was a mockery--the same voice she used to use to tease him to the point of a killing rage.

His hands slid beneath her thighs, pulling her with him as he leaned backward, sitting up in the bed with a fully pajama-ed Slayer straddling his lap. She tossed her arms over his shoulders, hanging on him lazily the way a coat hangs on a coat rack. He swore he felt her tongue running along his ear for the briefest of moments before she nipped at his ear lobe with her teeth.

"Slayer," his voice a warning.

"William."

"We won't make it to the shower."

"Oh, we'd better, Mister. I won't take any hanky panky from you."

That eyebrow quirked. Her thumb ran along the scar there, pressing at the bone beneath. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, a strange rumble rolling through his chest.

"Wait," she said, sitting back on his thighs and dropping her hands to her sides. "Did you just purr?"

"Wha'?" His eyes were wide and still vaguely out of focus as if he wasn't quite seeing what was before him. "No! No, no. Purr, psh. Vampires don't purr."

"Mm--wuhl... why not?" She slid herself back up his thighs, resting ever so lightly against his pelvis, his cock pressing against her stomach. "I purr. And I'm perfectly human."

The eyebrow again. She leaned in and pressed a kiss against it, giving her hips a good rock to go with it. "Ok, well. Human enough."

He purred again, the sound rumbling through his chest low enough that she felt the vibrations against her.

"Good kitty. Bath time for you."

"Most cats would consider that a punishment, love."

"Well then, bad kitty. You need punishment and I need shower. Anyway," she had an arm on either side of his head, his skull wrapped in her forearms, her hands so mussed in his hair that you couldn't even see them. "I hear kittens are tasty. And I'm hungry."

She laved her tongue into the hollow of his collarbone and he shuddered, eyes closing, hands tightening in her waist, pulling her closer to him. She wriggled away, managing to extract herself from his grip, dig around in her bag for a minute, and then disappear through the bathroom doorway.

He wasn't even sure that that tiny shower was big enough to hold two people but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try it. He got up and followed as if tied to her by a string--unable to resist and not even willing to try. She had stripped down already by the time he made it into the room, the harsh incandescent light washed out her skin tone and made her look worn-out and trashy. It hurt him to see her like that. He wanted to turn off the lights. She leaned down, resolutely ignoring him, and turned on the tap, testing the water until it was a temperature that she found tolerable before she stepped beneath the spray, closed her eyes, and wet her hair in the stream of water.

He was quickly free of his clothes, leaving them pell-mell on the floor as he stumbled toward the shower, stepping beneath the hot spray behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, his cock nestled against her back. She leaned her head back under the spray, her wet hair resting against his shoulder. She held on to his forearms, pressing them against her, begging to be closer. He turned her in his arms and she looked up at him with her smoldering eyes. That was the look she had given him since the beginning of time. That was the look that said fuck me, or kill me, or you’re going to die. That was the Buffy-look. The one she reserved for Spike and Spike alone. It was his look and it made something within him surge. He wrapped his hands around her thighs, pulling her legs up around his waist. She got the message, happy to oblige, and hoisted herself onto him, using his shoulders as leverage. She lowered herself onto his cock, eyes locked on his, and he was reminded of another time and place. He closed his eyes against the flood of emotion that came with the memory and slammed her against the ceramic tiled wall of the shower. She cried out at the sharp rap against her skull, the cold of the tile against her skin, the hard press of him within her when he hit just that place. His hand went to her hair, burying his fingers in the strands, cupping her skull where it had smacked against the hard tile. He rubbed away the pain, soothing the throb and the pressure while he pressed his lips to hers.

She clenched her muscles around him, drawing a moan from his mouth into hers. He pulled back from the kiss to look her in the eye, which didn’t help matters. She pulled at him, using her arms and legs and everything she had to raise herself up until just the very tip of him was inside her. Slowly, ever so slowly, she dropped herself down until he was once again fully engulfed within her. Even when there was no more of him, she pressed, grinding herself against him, her arms and legs leaving bruises where she mashed him to her.

She leaned in, her teeth at his neck, biting so hard and so suddenly that she broke the skin, the cold metallic taste of blood dancing across her tongue. He cried out loud enough that the sound echoed through the tiny bathroom. His voice strangled in his throat, he wrapped his hands around her bottom, pulling her up, finding that removing her from his body was as difficult as removing a heavy duty suction cup from glass. Eventually, she relented, allowing him to get a look at her, his blood dripping from the corner of her lips in a way that was far too artistic to be unintentional and knowing she had taken the extra effort made the image even more erotic. That and the fact that she was still so entrenched on his cock that he felt like he was drowning.

Whenever they did this--not the whole ridiculously cliched sex-scenario thing, the eye contact thing--he knew precisely why he had labored for so long under the impression that she was in love with him. Things passed between them when they looked into one another’s eyes. Loathing, love, desire, repulsion--hell if he could tell. She’d given him that same look for years and years upon years. That same--

He had to close his eyes to the power of it. He was going to come just from eye contact and she’d never let him hear the end of that.

She freed a hand, grabbing him by the jaw and mashing his face around with a shake until he opened his eyes again. There was sweetness there now, a sort of tenderness that he had seen before. That sort of... that raw... just _that look_ was more frightening, and painful, and _bloody brilliant_ than anything she ever did with her lips or tongue or nether regions. The blood on her lips had been washed away in the shower stream. The water was growing cold. His skin was growing colder and colder. Wherever she touched him felt more and more like it was on fire.

She kept his face in her hand, leaning forward, closing her eyes and kissing him gently, softly, dancing with him. She slid her lips across his fully, as if trying to suck a grape off the cluster with nothing but her lips. He moaned against her once more, pulling her up. She resisted but finally raised herself along his length. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to keep him still or just trying to make the friction so deliciously unbearable that he was about to pop. She released her lips from his, mouth wide in a silent o.

She plunged back down on him and he came, unable to take it any longer. He smashed against her, pressing her to the tiles with all of his weight. She dropped her legs quickly so that she could keep them standing before they had a chance to fall and garner more bruises and bloody wounds.

When he finally managed to catch up with himself, he looked up at her, eyes on fire, and she squeezed her walls around him once more. He groaned, as if in pain and pulled from her.

“No more,” he said.

“Yes more.” She writhed against him, a dramatic pout on her face. Despite the melodramatics she managed to make her need entirely clear by the way she clenched her legs and pressed toward him.

He grinned a sly little grin. “I’ll give you something better, then.” He kissed her just enough on the lips so that she knew it was only the start of the trail. He slid his way down her body, neck, collarbone, chest, breasts, down her abs which she clenched under his lips as they trailed down each muscle. He lapped his tongue into her belly button, heading toward the patch of hair between her legs. He pulled back, looking up at her, his hands holding onto her hipbones as if they were handles. Her eyes were hooded and desperate, her breathing heavy and uneven. The tip of her tongue slid out of the corner of her mouth and gave the surrounding area a good once over. She didn’t even seem to be conscious of it.

He settled on his knees, banging them hard against the slick shower floor and not caring in the least. She crooked a leg over his shoulder, her foot hitting the shower door in the tiny cubicle. She pressed her foot flush against the glass and ran her hands through his hair, locking her fingers behind his head and pulling him to her.

“Spike--”

“I’ve got you,” he said, his eyes hooded now, his face so close to her that she could feel him there, too close and not close enough. He raised his hand to hold on to her thigh where she wrapped around him. He ran a finger from her knee all the way up to her backside, ever so lightly touching her skin, raising goose bumps in his wake. The freezing water wasn’t helping on that front. He felt like there should be steam coming off of her skin wherever that water hit her.

His finger found its way to just outside her lips, trailing around her sex without touching it. He knew he was at the naked edge of teasing privileges. Any more and he’d probably get a black eye for all his trouble (and then she’d take advantage of him when he was only half conscious or something, and it was much more fun when fully awake). So he let his finger trail to her opening and inched it inside of her, slowly, slowly, slowly. She squalled, half moan, wanting more, more, more. He pressed his finger, hard, against that spot that he knew _oh_ so well. She screamed. Spike found himself happy that they were checking out soon, or else they’d probably get tossed out, all the noise they’d been making.

Unable to take it anymore, craving the taste of her, he drew his finger from her, getting a firmer grip on her leg and her hips. He pressed his lips to her. She was so hot against him that he knew her gasp was half from what he was doing and half the sensation of having something so cold pressed to her nethers.

“Spike,” she gasped. His tongue flicked out, his mouth warming against her. The tang of her the... god, this had always been one of his favorite things. To hear her with his name on her lips like that. To have her writhing against him with the taste of her in his mouth.

“Spike!” He swung her other leg over his shoulder as well, her whole weight pressing down on him. His neck was stretching in the most curious ways. He didn’t care in the least. He worked his tongue into her, sucking now and then whenever he thought she would least expect it--and knowing her as he did he was always rewarded with a gasp or a squeal. She was close, he knew. That whole game with the eyes from earlier had almost done her in as well. But apparently cold showers worked just as well for women. He pulled his tongue back replacing it with his fingers and, locking his lips over her clit, he sucked hard.

She screamed, bucking against him, her bones sharp against his mouth. He didn’t relent. He kept sucking, driving her as high as he dared. Eventually he let off, allowing her to come down. Her body relaxed, ever so slowly, like ice cream melting in the spring. She drooped against him and he slid her legs off his shoulders and back to the floor. He stood, running his hands up her body as she struggled to catch her breath. When she opened her eyes again it was to see a small smile and one of those inexplicably painfully fabulous expressions in Spike’s eyes, mere inches from hers. His hands were on the tile on either side of her head.

“Well now,” he said. “Kitty’s punished.”

She reached behind him, her breasts rubbing deliciously against him before she pulled back. She had a completely soaked washcloth in her hand, holding it with two fingers as if it were covered in something gross. “Wanna wash me?”

His grin was feral and he snatched the terry cloth square from her, sending droplets of cold water flying upward as he flung it from her grasp and dove in for another kiss.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy and Spike finally sex up the car, and finally make it to New Orleans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also posted on LJ at [wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/5137.html).

****“One,” she said, holding out her finger so stiffly it was like an accusation. “I’m hungry. Two,” she flicked another one out to keep the first company. “I have to pee. Three,” a third joined the party. “If you do not have sex with me in the back seat of this car before the sun rises _I will slay you_.”

He snorted. “Right, like I haven’t heard that before.” He cocked his head to the side, eyebrow raised. “Actually, wait. Nope. That might be a completely new one. Good on you, Slayer. I thought I’d heard everything.”

What had started as a fairly normal conversation had raged around to the strangest fight Buffy had ever found herself in the middle of. And she had been in some damn weird fights--both verbal and resorting to fisticuffs.

“If you don’t feed me I’m going to put vampire on the menu.”

“I asked you if you wanted to stop at that place we ate last night before we left.”

“Yes, but at that point I thought we’d be stopping before we made it to _Louisiana_.”

“We’re _hours_ from Louisiana.”

Her face was dangerously set.

“Right. Feed the Slayer. No one gets hurt,” he quipped, throwing back a bag of chilled blood and sucking it dry as if he were relishing the last dregs of a cup of morning coffee. She glared at him as he resolutely ignored the road, driving halfway into the other lane before he finished, chucking the empty bag in the back and calmly steering them back between the lines.

“Ew,” she drawled in such a tone that he knew she was displeased.

“Wha’?”

“Thanks for spattering blood all over the upholstery.”

“Not intending to bite me, then?”

She narrowed her eyes at him and he couldn’t tell if she was warning him off or if she was considering the possibilities. It made him squirm.

“My ass is numb,” he said lamely, making excuses for visibly shifting his weight around. “Next sign for food you see, let me know.”

“Where the hell are we anyway?”

“Somewhere in Texas.”

“Which means we’ve driven off the edge of the world and will never find our way back. ‘Here there be monsters.’”

The corner of his mouth smirked. “Not sure they ever made maps of Texas that said that, pet.”

“Here there be Slayers starving to death in the middle of nowhere,” she said, banging angrily on the dash. “Come on! This is cow country! Shouldn’t there be a steak joint at every mile marker?”

“At 11PM?”

The streetlights flared across a sign declaring 24-hour all-you-can-eat steak.

“Ha!” she said, pointing triumphantly. “See! Texas!”

There was no help for it--the girl tickled his insides. It was a sensation strangely akin to being hopelessly in love. As Spike flipped the turn signal and took the exit ramp he smiled that gentle smile that melted her, not realizing it was one reserved only for her idiosyncrasies.

They parked and walked inside, surprised to find a fair few people munching on plates full of cow and potatoes.

“Huh,” she grunted.

“Howdy y’all!” they were greeted by an absurdly cheerful man in a cowboy hat who seated them took their order and, apparently, then ran into the back to cook up their steak.

“Spike, I don’t think ‘so rare it’s never touched the grill’ is within health code parameters.”

“Better than ‘so bloody it moos,’ i’n’it?”

She just rolled her eyes, chin resting heavily in her hands, eyes blinking lazily trying to fend off sleep. Her stomach growled loudly and she groaned at it. It growled again in reply.

Steak was brought forth and consumed. “Moooo,” Spike said, _soto voce_ over his plate when it arrived. She kicked him lightly under the table and he giggled one of those maniacal giggles.

They finished up, paid, and Buffy headed to the bathroom. Spike was in the car and buckled in when Buffy came out, rapping her knuckles quickly on the window and motioning for him to get out.

“My turn,” she said when he’d opened the door and stood up. She shoved past him and managed to wiggle herself into the seat, buckling her seat belt and turning the key. The engine roared to life on the second try and Spike simply rolled his eyes and slid around the front of the car, buckling himself into the passenger seat as Buffy went roaring out of the parking lot.

“Chill with the gas pedal, love.”

“I filled it up.”

“Yeah, like two days ago.”

“Eh. We’ll fill up.”

Back on the open road, Spike turned to watch her drive. Headlights from an on-coming car blazed across her face, transforming her briefly into a white blur before they were cast back into shadow, illuminated only by the feeble green light of the dash instruments.

“So,” he said.

“So what?”

“I fed you,” he said, holding a finger out elegantly in the air between them. “You got to pee. And what was that third thing on the list?” He made a big show of rubbing at his chin in contemplation. “Hm. I can’t seem to recall _what_ that was. Oh, well. No harm done. We’ll just forget about, _it!_ ” he cried out as she swerved suddenly to the side of the road, pulling them well off the pavement and into the tall grass that grew in the right-of-way.

She slung the car into park and tugged viciously at the hand break before turning the key and leaving it in the ignition. They sat there for a moment, staring at one another in the dim light of the moon filtering through the windshield. Without the vent blowing there was a chill to the air. She took a deep breath and let it out, ragged against the night. Then she was in his lap, straddling him, her hands in his hair, cradling his head, pulling her too him, lips locked fiercely over his. She ground against him, hooking a knee around the back of the seat to help her leverage herself. He pulled back, almost shocked, trying to look her in the eye. But she would have none of it. She glanced at him briefly, her eyes dark with desire, before diving in again, her tongue pressing for admittance which was readily given.

She explored his mouth as if she had never known it before. She ran her tongue along his teeth, his gums, then tangled it around his own and suckled so hard that he moaned, leaning into her. He felt himself growing hard and she pulled back smiling that she had raised such a bulge in his pants.

“I thought you said the back seat,” he said, voice husky with lust.

“Yeah, well, we did the hood. If we do the front seat now we get the back seat later.”

“We’ll make it to New Orleans by sunrise if we play it right.”

“So?”

“So, you’d better get your kicks in now.”

“Not up for two?” her grin was so devious and daring that he growled, grabbing her thighs and pressing himself against her. “Mm, maybe you are.”

“If I’d known about your schoolgirl fantasies we’d’ve had a lot more fun back in high school.”

“Puh-lease,” she said. “I’d’ve kicked your ass so hard you wouldn’t remember where things go.”

“Oh,” he said, dipping down to lick at the pulse point of her neck. “I’d remember.” She shuddered against him as he left a cold trail along her impossibly hot neck.

“At least you don’t want me to dress up like a nun.”

His head snapped upright, unbidden and disturbing images floating to the surface of his mind’s eye and threatening to boil over into rage.

“He didn’t--”

By the way she was giggling he knew the joke was on him.

“Back seat for you, missy!” he scolded, grabbing her around the middle and shifting her out of his lap and onto the center console before pushing her lightly on the shoulder and sending her into the floor of the back seat with a plop.

“Ew! Your old blood bag!” She held up her hand, covered in the sticky half-congealed old blood, and he took it in both of his hands, holding it steady and very carefully licking it completely clean from top to bottom, not leaving one drop behind.

She watched him lazily cleaning off her hand, his eyes hooded behind his long lashes, and she felt herself shiver at the delicacy of his touch. When her hand was clean, he flicked his tongue between each finger, lapping at the sensitive skin and making her shudder and try to pull her hand away, surprised at what such simple slow deliberate contact was doing to her body.

He wouldn’t let her go, holding her wrist steady until he had explored every single curve and crevice of her small hand. Then he released her and her arm just floated there suspended for a moment as if in complete and utter shock and disbelief.

Then she pulled it in, clutching a fist to her chest and holding it there as if it contained something precious. She hoisted herself backwards onto the back seat and sat there for a moment, regaining some semblance of up and down.

He crawled between the seats, one arm on either side of her, stalking her as if she were jungle prey. She smiled when his eyes met hers, feral and hungry, and she leaned back at his incursion into her space until she hit the seat back and he pinned her there against the cushions.

It was his turn to lean in with the possessive kiss, scraping at her bottom lip with his teeth and tugging it into his mouth before giving it a suck that had her gasping. She latched her lips onto his, begging for him to return the kiss. He wasn’t hard to convince.

Her fingers were working roughly in the waistband of his jeans and he didn’t know what the hell she was doing until she had tugged his shirt out and was trying to yank it over his head. He broke from her briefly to allow her to yank it off. It fell to the floor, more than likely on that used old bag of blood, but they were both beyond caring what manner of mess they made. As far as Buffy was concerned, this stupid old car was only even still on the road so that she could have raunchy sex in the backseat of a jalopy.

Her hands were on his belt buckle, opening it so quickly that he wondered it didn’t snap. She tugged the belt out of its loops and dropped it to the floor with a clatter.

He knelt, straddling her, one knee on either side of her as he sat back on his thighs. Her brow furrowed when he took her face in both hands, tenderly looking deeply into her eyes and seeming to study her face for a minute.

“What?”

“You’re so weird.”

“Gee, thanks for the memo.”

“Buffy.”

“What-y?”

He kissed her. It wasn't the loin-thundering, earth-shattering kiss that they usually shared in moments like this. It was a kiss that was so soft and innocent that it pulled at the most delicate of her heartstrings. It sent shivers up and down her spine. When he pulled back, she followed him, her lips still pressed just enough to his that she could feel the tingling between her shoulder blades. She was surprised to find a tear running down her cheek when she finally broke the kiss, wiping it hastily away on his shoulder before anybody was any the wiser, resting her head there for a moment before she grabbed his shoulders in vice-like hands and flipped them, landing with Spike splayed across the length of the seat on his back, Buffy strewn across him.

She held herself up, poised above him, making sure that her hips came into contact with his for one brief and tantalizing moment before she pulled back up once more.

“Tease.”

“You’ve got too much clothes on,” she said, pulling back and undoing the button on his pants, tugging at his fly, and slowly inching his jeans down his legs. He sucked in a breath at the prolonged contact, certain that she was devising new ways to kill him in the interim. Finally, his cock popped free of its confines and she had him rid of his clothing quick enough.

She pulled at her own jeans and panties, free of the constricting fabric far more quickly than she’d denuded him, all of their clothing save her shirt in one messy pile on the floorboards. Her shirt she still had on. He was less than pleased with _that_ situation.

His hands roved, snaking their way under the offending top, one playing in the curve of her waist, the other trailing up to fondle a breast beneath the fabric. She groaned, settling herself above him, taking him in her hand and dropping just low enough to run the tip of his cock teasingly against her hot slick entrance. He felt as if his eyes would roll back into his head. He closed them, just so it wouldn't look unseemly if it really happened.

She lowered herself slowly onto him, taking her own damn sweet time about it before finally he was completely within her and he felt the weight of her settle against his pelvic bone. Such a delicious feeling, the pressure and the constriction, and the _oh dear god_ \--

“Buffy!” when she worked her muscles like that it was nearly enough to do him in, no matter how long they’d been going at it. She knew that, of course, so she was taking a hell of a risk--or trying to fray his control to the breaking point as quickly as possible, which was far more likely.

She rocked against him once, twice, before leveraging herself up on her knees and sliding up the length of him until he was only just barely still inside of her. She dropped herself back down, letting gravity do all the work, and he barked in ecstasy.

She stilled.

“Spike...” she seemed suddenly almost shy.

“What is it love?” He opened his eyes reigning himself in with a visible effort, and was suddenly all concern and that made her even shyer.

“Um. Do you ever want to... you know... bite me?”

“I bite you all the time,” he said, pulling her down to him and nipping at her shoulder with the flat of his teeth and leaving a red indent in her skin.

“No, I mean... with... you know, _bite_ me bite me. Bumpies and f-fangs.”

That shocked a disbelieving look onto his face.

“Why would I-- _oh_ ,” he said, suddenly understanding. “Do you want me to bite you?”

He could feel her heartbeat speeding up as the blood raced through the veins in her skin. She clenched around him at the thought of his teeth sinking into her flesh, and he sought something else to occupy his mind. He rested his thumb against the pulse in her wrist, running his hand up to lace his fingers with hers. “We are naughty tonight, aren’t we? And you just stuttered which is possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I just... I’ve never... well, it’s sort of a... a... you know.”

“It’s a highly erotic experience. Combining a good feed with sex is one of the great joys of being a vampire.” He looked far off into the distance of memory--one that didn’t actually seem to be all the pleasant now that he was thinking about it--before a devilish grin crept up his face and he looked more like an imp in nothing but his human visage than he ever did when he had his game face on.

Her hand had made its way unconsciously up to her neck, rubbing at the spot where scar upon scar had created a strange sinuous landscape. He stopped her hand and pulled it away, allowing the demon to the surface. He gently kissed her fingertips before placing her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you ok with this?” she asked him. “You won’t...”

“I am beyond ok with this.” Slayer blood. Dear god, she was crazy. He always loved the crazy ones.

“Everyone bites the same side,” she said. “I don’t... all of those are bad memories. I don’t want you to bite me there.”

He traced a finger across the bumps and indentations of the scars, all of them faded so much now after so many years of Slayer healing that they were little more than discolored patches on her neck. She rocked her hips and they both moaned. As if enthralled by her neck, his finger ran across her larynx, and down into the dip on the other side, tracing the smooth expanse of skin before him. He could feel her pulse pounding beneath his finger.

She leaned down to him as he leaned up on one elbow, wrapping a hand around the base of her head to hold her to him at just the right angle. He nuzzled at the soft warm skin with his nose, before placing a kiss against her neck. Then he opened his mouth and let his fangs sink into her flesh.

Her blood welled into his mouth and the taste of her nearly made him come. He stopped, completely still for the better part of a minute before he took another long draw at her neck. She whimpered, but her hands went to his head, holding him there. She pumped herself up and down on his cock with a deep driving intensity. Faster she went, faster and faster until she was crying out, great shaking screams that were part pleasure part pain and all complete and utter sensory overload. She felt him pull at her neck, her heart pounding so hard that she felt certain it would leap from her chest at any minute. He worked her, higher and higher, his tongue dipping into one of the puncture wounds and eliciting a moan of pleasure from her at the jolt of pain. She crashed down over him, her lips trailing across every bit of him that she could reach. She left butterfly kisses along the expanse of his collarbone, up the meat of his shoulder, and finally, without so much as a warning, she bit roughly into the place where his shoulder met his neck. The blood surged across her tongue and he cried out, letting her go, both of them cascading over the edge. Buffy came hard at the taste of his blood, the flood of emotions and images from the demon element racing through her body and colliding with the lusts already in full force there. For his part, Spike came so hard when her teeth broke the skin that he couldn’t locate his brain for a good five minutes. They lay there in a boneless heap, breathing heavily into the darkness, blood smeared across their mouths and along their bodies.

“So,” he finally said after he had managed to regain some semblance of linear thought. “Cross that off the list.”

She giggled, her breathing still in the process of growing even. “Sex in car. Check.” She checked it off in the air.

He rolled her until she was lying beside him on the seat. She was so tiny that he had her nestled against his shoulder in the small space between him and the seat back. He grabbed a handful of her ass and gave it a good squeeze, before patting the offended flesh back soothed. “Have Buffy ask me to bite her. Check,” he checked that out of the air too. “God, Buffy, that--”

She loomed above him, fingers on his lips stilling his words before he could even form them. She leaned down, smearing her bloody mouth against his and he could taste his own demon blood on her lips and tongue and teeth. He shuddered against her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her down, clutching her to his chest.

They lay like that for a long while, neither of them speaking. They didn’t have to anymore. Not unless they wanted to tease each other. But hell, even then half the time they could do it with a particularly turned smirk or the specific curve of a raised eyebrow.

“Shouldn’t we get going?” she said finally, tracing some unknown pattern across one of his biceps with her fingernail. He sat up slightly, peering at the clock in the dash.

“We’ll never make New Orleans now.”

“Well, then, we’ll stop and enjoy the services of another shower--HOTEL. I meant hotel.”

But the smirk on his face told her all she needed to know.

*****

"Hotel?"

"Why?"

"Sun's comin' up."

"We're in Louisiana."

"Yeah, but--"

"Pull over a minute. I'll drive. You get under your blanket. I'm tired of being cooped up in here." She rolled her shoulders as if she could knock the sludge of travelling off of them.

He shrugged a slight shrug, threw on his signal, and coasted them to the side of the road. He undid his seatbelt and dove between the seats, managing to roll himself out flat onto the floor before crawling up to the seat and bringing his blanket with him, wrapped around him like a soft tortilla shell.

Buffy watched him the entire time, a soft smile on her face, her eyes so warm that they could be called "gooey." It wasn't until he was situated and nothing but a dark wool covered mound on the back seat that she undid her own seatbelt and walked around the front of the car. He had left it idling. She simply buckled herself in, put the car in gear, and pulled back out onto the highway.

"I thought you wanted to stop again," she heard muffled from beneath the blanket.

"I do. But I'd rather stop when we get there and find somewhere to stay."

"We could find one of those places where you pay by the week. A skeezy one so it's not too much. Then we can spend all our time fighting instead of working in coffee shops."

"Fighting--?"

"Vamps. Demons. All the little nasties that prey upon people in the night."

"So, not each other then?"

The amount of time before he spoke was precisely the amount of time it took a smirk to take root on his face and grow. "If you ask me real nice."

She drove, once more finding herself squinting into the rising sun as they headed east. It was hard to tell when a vampire was asleep. There weren't really any tell-tale signs like breathing evening out or even snoring, not usually. Spike tended to talk sometimes, but you often couldn't tell the strange things he said in his sleep from the equally ridiculous things he said while fully conscious. She figured by about nine he was most definitely asleep.

Which is why it took her by surprise when she took an exit and stopped at the stoplight, only to feel his hand clamp down on her shoulder, the weight of him resting on it as he used her to pull himself upright, still wrapped in the blanket like a castaway in the arctic circle.

"Where are we?"

"Close enough, I figure. I think we're in New Orleans proper. Said there was one of those suite places and it had a weekly rate on it."

"How much was it?"

"Hundred and fifty bucks."

"That sounds perfectly shady and disrespectable."

"Just what we were looking for, right?"    

"Absolutely."

"Well, let's get set up them. Time to slay."

When they were firmly installed in their hotel room after a bit of haggling and insisting that the crazy man with the blanket over his head was not contagious and was no danger to anyone but himself, Buffy drew the curtains securely and turned around to face him as he dropped the blanket to the ground and turned on the lamp.

The harsh light threw strange shadows across his face from an odd angle and she stood for a moment, stricken enough to study his face as if rememorizing the lines.

"Always the same," she said, her hand reaching up through the air as if she would touch his face even though she was the room away.

"Part of the deal, pet." He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and stood there for all the world like a cowboy in a western. He seemed to be studying her back. She looked exhausted, gaunt--somehow she wasn't the same girl. It was like the further you took her from what she knew the less she was the girl she was. He knew the sooner he got her on the street and killing things the better off they'd both be. She hadn't been quite the same in a good long while when he really came to the think about it. Not since she convinced herself that nobody needed her. Not since she stayed away from them all enough for them to realize that they _didn't_ need her. The whole point of the exercise was to get her to remember that there was more to this gig than just saving your friends and saving the world in the process. So here he was, waiting for the darkness yet again and trying to find ways to pass the time before the sun went down and he could take her out to do what she was born to do.

"What?" she said finally.

"What, what?"

"Why are you staring? Do I look like crap? I bet I look trashy. Ugh. I need a shower."

That got a rise out of one uniquely scarred eyebrow.

"To _clean_ this time. To get the gunk off me. Ugh, I feel like crap. _Why_ didn't we fly again?"

"This was cheaper. And now we have a car. We can ride wherever we want. Plus, no one's looking for a Slayer and a vampire to cross country in broad daylight in an automobile. Night flights, maybe. But who'd think to keep a watch on the highways."

"Somehow I get the feeling you weren't paying attention all those times they tried to kill me last year."

He shrugged. "Nothing special."

"They're crazy enough to watch the roads."

"'Watch the skies!'" he said with a dramatic rise in pitch.

"Huh?"

"Nothing," he said. "Old thing from... never mind. It's not important. You go take your shower. I think you've earned it by not killing us with your driving."

"Har, har," she said, shoving him hard enough with a finger on her way by that he found himself seated with a flop on the bed behind him. She dug through her bag and pulled out a change of clothes, then disappeared behind the wall that separated the little bathroom alcove from the rest of the room. "They got soap and stuff in here?"

"I guess? Want me to get some from the desk?"

"Yes, I'd love to see you turn into a giant fireball when you walk into that plate glass lobby and ask for some soap. Really on the top of my list of things to experience before I die. Again."

"I could _call_ the desk, love. I'm sure they'd send some up." He heard various banging around noises.

"Found it. No need."

He heard the splash of the water as it began to run heavy in the tub, then the whir and sing of it when she directed the stream through the shower head and it began to splash like stinging rain in to the tub. She apparently hadn't closed the door to take her shower. He heard her step beneath the spray.

"Want help?"

"If you're the one offering."

He was in the bathroom, yanking back the shower curtain as fast as is legs could carry him. His arms reached out, encircling her waist, pulling her wet body backwards against him, soaking his shirt and jeans straight through.

"I'm offering."

*****

She saw strange flashes of things. A snatch of light upon a vampire's face, mouth covered in blood and eyes yellow and bright as streetlamps. Darkness. Darkness all around as if they were in a pit or some sort of ground zero. Something had burned up here. Something had caved in. She knew nothing. She knew no one. She knew not where she was. A pain shot through her heart like fire then settled out to nestle in her very center like a dull consistent ache. That wasn't part of the dream--that was the recognition.

Her eyes snapped open and she jerked, as if trying to catch herself from falling. She blinked into the darkness, the fear still lingering with her, and then she closed her eyes hard and tried to shake the feeling out of her head. She reached behind her in the darkness, finding Spike's naked thigh with her fingers and letting out a sigh of relief. She gave his leg a pat and sat upright, surprised when she went to brush her hair out of her face and found her cheek wet.

"What's wrong, love?" His voice was thick with sleep.

"Bad dream."

"Dream dream or Slayer dream?"

"I..." she paused, suddenly not sure of her answer. "I don't know. It could've been either."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"N-not really. It was... bad."

"Ol' Spike went psycho and killed half of Sunnydale? Oh, wait…that happened. Sorry." She grinned at his wry attempt to lighten the situation, but the strange feelings still hung with her. "I do have some experience with crazy psychics, I remind you."

"I don't know if it was like that. I don't know what it was. Just forget it." She didn't like the way it was making her feel, the weird memories that it was bringing up and the terrifying thought that the whole thing might actually happen. It made goosebumps rise on her arms.

Spike sighed, rolling out of bed and pulling on his jeans.

"What?" she said.

He could see her shutting down again. He could see her closing herself off from everything and everyone and he was tired of dancing around it like it never happened. He was tired of being the only one who could jam himself in there like a crowbar and pry her open just enough to let him inside. He was tired of being that delicate tool. He just wanted her to feel…to feel complete.

"It's close enough to sundown to get up."

She nodded, still wrapped around herself.

He sighed again, looking at her there in a huddle. "Was it Apocalypse bad, or naked to catch the bus bad?"

"Neither. It was…blank. But it’s over now. Forget it. Just a stupid dream."

Crowbar time.

“Look, Buffy..." he sighed. All right, he was pissed. "You don’t _have_ to be strong with me. You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders and never put it down. It won’t quit turning without you. I wouldn’t let it. Give it to me for a bit, yeah? Let me carry it and you rest. Just rest a while?”

She wouldn’t meet his eye. “You always know,” she whispered.

“ _What_ love? What do I always know?”

“You always know me. You always know what to say. Ever since--”

He waited a moment, thinking perhaps she would supply the missing time frame. When she didn’t he gave a sigh, sitting beside her on the bed. She hid her face in her wild hair, still coiled tightly, hunched over her drawn-up knees. He rested a hand gently on her back. She was like a furnace.

“Since the beginning. Ever since the beginning.”

“Yeah.”

He rubbed a gentle circle against her rib cage, feeling it expand and contract beneath his fingers.

“You don’t have to be this way, Buffy. I _know_ you. I know what you are. I know _who_ you are. You can... you can let it all go with me. You know that.”

She took a shaky breath and let it out, controlled, like it was some sort of stabilizer added to a wobbly table leg. “I know.” Her breathing was evening out. The tightness in her throat was trying to ease. “I know it.” She took another breath and a quicker sigh this time, as if she had regained her constitution. “It just....” She wiped the heel of her palm against an eye, looking at the glistening wetness on her palm as if it had somehow betrayed her. She swiped the back of her hand against her cheeks, taking an undignified snort of air through her nose to save herself from dribbling snot down her face. “It’s hard,” she said finally.

“Of all the reasons I’d love to drive a stake through that poncy bastard’s heart, I think you may be the biggest one.”

“What?” she was thrown for a loop.

“You let a guy in, he tears you up, he leaves an unholy mess in his wake and _boom_. The girl’s never the same again.”

“Spike... this isn’t about Angel.” She almost sounded amused.

“It’s not?”

“No. It hasn’t been about Angel for a long time. A hell of a long time. Yea--well, ok, months. At the least.”

He hung his head a bit, hand sliding off her back as if he had forgotten about it.

“I know you too, you know,” she said, turning to him, her fingers toying with her toes to keep them from toying with him. “I know how you are. I’ve known--I’ve known the whole time. Since the beginning. I know your weird obsessions and your crazy passions and how obnoxious and persistent you are. This isn’t about Angel, and it’s not about Gil--him either. So get that sadsack look off your face. It’s just I _want_ to give it up. I want to let you hold the world up so I can take a stretch, and a breather, and go on such a crying jag that I don’t know if I’ll ever come back from it. That’s the problem, Spike. I don’t... I don’t trust _myself_ enough to foist it off on you. I just....”

His hands were in her hair, he had pulled her into his lap somehow, and his nose rubbed against hers in such a deliciously intimate way. “There,” he said. “I’ve stolen it now.” And his lips were on hers.

She could feel it--all of it--leaving her. She could feel the tension and the hatred, the burden and the responsibility all draining out of her chest like someone had pulled the stopper on a bathtub. It flowed from her and she didn’t know where it was going and she didn’t care as long as he kept kissing her.

There were things she didn’t understand, there were things that he tried and tried to no avail to _make_ her understand, but she wouldn’t see. She wouldn’t see that he didn’t want the world. Sod the world for all he cared. He didn’t want to save the innocent or punish the guilty or any of that other ridiculous crap. He was over that phase. All he wanted now was to care for her. All he wanted was to make sure she was up, running, fit, and fiddling. If she was safe, if she was _functional_ (which, on increasing occasion, she was not, no matter how desperately she tried to hide it from her friends) then that would save more people in one hour than he ever could in a day. With him at her side they could do exponentially more good than if they worked alone--than if she worked at drowning in her bed and he worked at rescuing damsels from demonic muggers.

When night fell they collected up their various weapons, stakes, and sharp-pointy thingies and headed outside, meandering beside the road.

“So,” Buffy said, staring up at the glaring moon. “Seen any good cemeteries lately?”

“You’ll like this,” Spike said, mystery in his voice.

“What?”

“You just wait.”

They turned a corner and a tightly packed group of hovels loomed against the darkness.

“ _That’s_ the cemetery.”

Buffy stared at it, mouth agape, face incredulous. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Good old New Orleans. Can’t dig because the water table’s too high. So everyone gets their own lovely crypt.”

“You... wha--... no _wonder_ so many vampires come here.”

“Oh, pff. No self-respecting New Orleans creature of the night would be caught dead living in the cemeteries. You just wait until you meet one or two.”

“So... why are we here?”

“Didn’t say they didn’t lurk.” He nudged in behind her, pointing into the darkness from over her shoulder.

She followed his finger, spying their quarry, and grinned.

“No one can resist a cozy graveyard, pet,” he whispered in her ear. “Not even you.”

She shrugged him off and stalked her prey.

*****

They had found a whole group of them by the time the night was out, doing some absurd ritual or other. Buffy and Spike dusted five of them all together and the rest had fled into the night, terrified out of their wits. Apparently, Spike explained, New Orleans life had made them all soft and poncy and they ran away from anything that so much as moved.

She felt relieved somehow--cleansed. She was glad to be moving around with her feet on the ground and the night air in her lungs. She was glad to be exploring the fantastic and unexpected splendor of the strange reverence for death all around her. She had boxed herself in in San Francisco. She’d killed everything and nearly been killed by all the things that weren’t on her mission-plan to kill. It was a fresh start here. It was... a vacation at the very least.

New Orleans was gorgeous, mysterious, deeply mythical, and ironically as full of vampires as any work of fiction would have you believe—andmostly through the power of suggestion. When times got tough for the newly turned, they would flock to the city seeking the hotbed that they had heard existed but never realized they had only heard of it in stories. By the time they got there, it truly was a virtual vampire haven. Times, indeed, would be good here. Here was a place that needed The Slayer, needed someone like Spike to help them. Here was a place that, he hoped, wouldn't say "fuck off" to two misfits like them.

In their cheap suburban motel, Spike lay awake in the darkness, Buffy's limbs wrapped around him so tightly that he would've have felt secure jumping out of an airplane without a parachute if she had one on and was holding him. Her steady deep sleeping breaths calmed his rapid-firing mind and he combed through her hair with his fingers as she whimpered and clutched him tighter in her sleep. It was a good thing he didn't need to breathe.

Her body warmed his from top to bottom, her heart hammering behind her breastbone making his blood shake through his veins from the pounding of it to the point where—for one earth-shattering moment—he felt that he was alive again.


End file.
